Ljosalfar archerrush is waaay overpowered!

[Uncas]

Hey guys I tried out your modmod, and quickly found out that there's something wrong with the way archers work. I do this -> crafting -> archery -> start poping out archers, sending them to the nearest barbarian city or lair. I let them stand there just bombarding untill -> hunting -> Gilden Silveric. From there I use those 2\3\4 archers+Gilden to take over the world. Last time i tried it was on EMPEROR settings with standard size map. Took 3\5 of the map without any trouble (destroying several civs on my way there). After this, I quit since it was just a matter of time untill i had conquered the rest. (at some point i let one archer free the Angel hero and Gilden found Orthus' axe)

As I see it, the only way to fix this is to remove archer XP from bombarding.

 

[vivictius]

While I think the bombard exp might still need to be toned down a bit (or maybe put a cap on it) the up comming change where you can shoot something below the point you can damage it will eliminate most of the archer exp farming.

 

[WarKirby]

As I see it, the only way to fix this is to remove archer XP from bombarding.

This isn't a fair assessment. You abused the crap out of one broken mechanic and conclude that the entire idea is flawed?

Balancing is best done in iterations. First, by fixing any bugs that may make things seem unbalanced. In this case, there's the problem that you still get xp for shooting targets you do no damage to. I believe I read somewhere that you also get more xp for shooting targets who are already injured.

Beyond that, the amount of xp gained from ranged attacks is quite small, and in almost all cases is inferior to xp gained by attacking. It's 5% of damage done. I don't think it needs any toning down. The mechanic just needs to be made more realistic. In this case, it makes no sense that units will stand there and take your infinite bombardments. They should get angry and either flee, or try to kill you.

In the case of city sieges, new xml tags are needed to allow promotions to give defence against ranged attacks. so that units in cities could have more protection against them and take less damage (thusly giving less xp). likewise for units in forests, and other assorted cover.

 

[Vermicious Knid]

Where is the facepalm smiley when you need it?

 

[Uncas]

They do damage from day one unfortunately(try it, you'll see, that's why they level so fast). So you upgrade them further and they do more and more damage.

You mention that they just stand there. Well if they attack, they die Warriors vs archers!

"You abused the crap out of one broken mechanic and conclude that the entire idea is flawed" - I did it because the whole idea of xp from taking no risc at all sounded too good to be true. (and it turned out to be too good). Don't mean to offend anyone, but i actually laughed when i noticed it(it was a barbarian archer that suddenly got lots of levels by just bombarding my passing troops) When you win effortless on emperor difficulty it may indicate that no small change can fix it. Perhaps i'm wrong

PS: Other than this obvious flaw, i think your modmod is wonderfull

 

[civ_king]

This isn't a fair assessment. You abused the crap out of one broken mechanic and conclude that the entire idea is flawed?

Balancing is best done in iterations. First, by fixing any bugs that may make things seem unbalanced. In this case, there's the problem that you still get xp for shooting targets you do no damage to. I believe I read somewhere that you also get more xp for shooting targets who are already injured.

Beyond that, the amount of xp gained from ranged attacks is quite small, and in almost all cases is inferior to xp gained by attacking. It's 5% of damage done. I don't think it needs any toning down. The mechanic just needs to be made more realistic. In this case, it makes no sense that units will stand there and take your infinite bombardments. They should get angry and either flee, or try to kill you.

In the case of city sieges, new xml tags are needed to allow promotions to give defence against ranged attacks. so that units in cities could have more protection against them and take less damage (thusly giving less xp). likewise for units in forests, and other assorted cover.

yes, you get experience based on the damage done to the target so far... not how much you do to it with that specific bombard...

 

[WarKirby]

You mention that they just stand there. Well if they attack, they die Warriors vs archers!

And if they die, you can't shoot them for xp anymore.

 

[Deon]

Yeah, and just walk in an empty city .

 

[odalrick]

I think that without some cost, xp gain from bombardment can never be balanced. Changing the amount of xp gained wont work. Either it is too much and planting archers near enemies is too rewarding, or it is too little and the mechanic makes no difference.

All other ways of gaining xp has a cost:

Combat risks the unit.
Civics have opportunity costs.
Buildings take city-turns to build.
Hero is limited by unit.

I think a small monetary cost would be good, to pay for the arrows and stuff.

 

[WarKirby]

I think a small monetary cost would be good, to pay for the arrows and stuff.

that's an interesting idea, actually. could work.

1 cost per archery bombardment ?

 

[Humakty]

1 gold cost wouldn't be enougth, we're talking about elven economy here !

 

[WarKirby]

1 gold cost is possibly too much, considering that you're running 5-10 income per turn near the start of the game. It's a significant proportion.

I wouldn't want to have the choice between shooting the invaders, or having an economy. That's far too much of a penalty. It doesn't cost other civs to attack. While it's true that ranged bombardments have no cost, they're also very low return for the time invested. The problem riht now is that situations conspire to make it an option you can do infinitely, whereas with normal attacks the enemy dies, and stops giving you xp. That is the root problem I think needs to be addressed.


Personally, My solution to this whole issue, would be to reduce the defensive strength of archers to the same as warriors (3), and remove their hill/city defence bonus, but increase the defence bonus of the Wall Defender promotion to 50% to represent them pelting the helpless enemy as they clmb siege ladders. I've always found it silly that archers get a bonus in defending a city with no walls

Then make ranged attacks FAR more powerful, and remove the damage cap. Essentially, forcing archers to rely on their ranged attacks, and be poor in direct combat. I'd also give them a reduced chance to defend the stack.

going on how real warfare works here. Archers don't stand and take the brunt of te attack. They pelt the enemy from a distance. When the enemy gets in close, it's your swords/axes/spearmen that do the fighting, and act as a meat shield. The way civ does things in this regard has always irked me. This approach would force a balance of ranged and melee troops to defend a city.]

But that is a rather deep and fundamental change. Perhaps I'll try it in a module sometime

 

[Humakty]

Well, maybe I'm the only one thinking elves are totally ubber, thanks to ancient forest & forest construction, but forcing them to take at least one or two strategic decisions can't be that bad. Poor Halves, no auto win button. Hopefully the civic IFT is still here to help them a little, they would just be gorgeous without it, poor them really, I think it...

In fact, this thread is a non sense : it's the alfar as a whole who are scandalously overpowered !

 

[WarKirby]

Archers aren't an auto win button. All they can do is injure the enemy. I think only Golden and Flurries have a high enough damage cap to kill with a ranged attack. You could make the argument that an injured enemy is easy to kill, and that's certainly true. But Ring of Flame, and Tsunami are far more effective ways of weakening the enemy. Archer bombardments pale in comparison to that.

Ljosalfar archers are a little stronger than other races', that's all. The archer issue is a problem for everyone. And with the Austrin Windstones, Scion Blackblood Arrows, and Mechanos Corned powder gunners, I'd be hesitant to call ljosalfar best at ranged attacks.

 

[Tarquelne]

I think that without some cost, xp gain from bombardment can never be balanced.

I agree, with 2 quibbles:

1) I think a hard xp cap could work. (It works for Training, yes?)

2) I suspect there is a range at which the xp gain is not too much while still being non-trivial. However, given the variety of game settings in Civ4, finding that range may be a practical impossibility.

 

[odalrick]

1 gold cost is possibly too much, considering that you're running 5-10 income per turn near the start of the game. It's a significant proportion.

I wouldn't want to have the choice between shooting the invaders, or having an economy. That's far too much of a penalty.

It's a choice between shooting at harmless units for experience and having an economy. If you're going to attack with a unit, it's at worst three or four gold for maybe 20% extra chance to win.

I think 1 gold per shot would be a good place to start, but it's trivial to get fractional costs if that proves necessary. It can probably be done entirely with the promotion system, at least if there is a way to gain a promotion after bombarding.

It doesn't cost other civs to attack.

Very much false. The price of attacking is cost of the unit multiplied by chance to lose unit. Plus loss of experience, time to move the unit, chance of counter-attack, giving enemies experience...

Spells don't have those costs, but that's later and they provide no experience. And the best spells probably should cost something extra too.

 

[odalrick]

I agree, with 2 quibbles:

1) I think a hard xp cap could work. (It works for Training, yes?)

A hard xp cap is a price. To get more xp you have to build more archers. -> xp, same as xp granting buildings.

2) I suspect there is a range at which the xp gain is not too much while still being non-trivial. However, given the variety of game settings in Civ4, finding that range may be a practical impossibility.

Do you believe that range is the same for Ljosalfar, Scions and Illians? (Just to pick a few civs at random, and elves.) Do you believe that range is the same for all players?

I think that there is a range where the xp gain is too small to be significant and a range where the xp is too much. I also think that those ranges overlap. That leaves not a whole lot of range between them.

 

[Tarquelne]

A hard xp cap is a price.

Okay... though I think it more a "limit." For example, I don't think it's accurate to say that the "price" of training a unit is that it can only get 5 free xps from training. That the "price" of a free-turkey each year, for example, is that you only get 1 free turkey. Not when you're allowed to buy - earn - more.

Do you believe that range is the same for Ljosalfar, Scions and Illians? (Just to pick a few civs at random, and elves.) Do you believe that range is the same for all players?

Quite possibly not. But that could all be accounted for! You'd just need to control and adjust for civ, map-size, game-speed, barb. frequency...

Did I mention I think it impractical? I think I did.

And I thought I was quibbling...

I think that there is a range where the xp gain is too small to be significant and a range where the xp is too much. I also think that those ranges overlap. That leaves not a whole lot of range between them.

*Shrug*. Sure. You say it doesn't exist, I say it's small and really, really hard to find. Did I mention I was quibbling? I think I did.

 

[Earthling]

I don't have a single problem with the archer ranged combat system - I think it's perfectly fine as it is. IIRC archers don't even upgrade to anything really special so if you spend 100 turns bombarding you'll just have some high xp archer units, nothing like other tricks like Malakim early units> paladins. The problem to me is thus entirely about barbarian or AI behavior - and unfortunately there doesn't seem like a quick fix, but a cap on xp from barbarian bombardment doesn't seem so bad - after all, there's a cap on barbarian combat in general. Still doesn't prevent a player from leaving one AI with one city left as an xp farm so maybe there could be some building that blocks xp from enemy bombardment (they still do damage, just no xp, and this only applies inside cities). But if you're not trying to abuse the system, it really works fine.

Also, maybe this has been changed - but I thought you couldn't get wall defender unless the city had a wall or palisade?

 

[Tholal]

Changing the amount of xp gained wont work. Either it is too much and planting archers near enemies is too rewarding, or it is too little and the mechanic makes no difference.

I disagree with the bolded part. Ranged attacks are a bonus for the unit that has them, allowing them to soften up enemy units with no risk to themselves. There's no reason that the XP gain from this tactic should be significant. It should be very small, IMO. If you want archers to gain experience faster, you can purchase the training buildings and send them into regular combat. Sitting next to a city and spamming arrow attacks that get healed the next turn should not be a viable tactic for leveling.

Reduce the XP gain and you still have the usefulness of the ranged attacks without the cheesy mechanics abuse.