The Huns & Spain need to be patched!
- Thread starter Rebel Fighter
- Start date
I never liked that idea of giving a scientific bonus to Korea,because such bonus is not based on most of their entire history,but rather,on a very tiny part of it(although it was the best one) . Perhaps one of the two things that should be done(but we know it won't be done) to nerf them are making its UA got obsoleted by some technology(France alike) and make them have a severe counter-espionage penalty,which will allow anyone to steal technologies from them very easily .
I've been playing spain regularly lately in MP and I have yet to lose. I have found a natural wonder first every single game I have played. Let me fill those of you in on a few things who dont understand why.
There's usually at least 4 or 5 naturals even on small pangea maps.
Any competent player will build at least 2 to 3 scouts. On top of the starting warrior you can scout the map extremely fast. Most games you will find a natural wonder by turn 10 since most players dont prioritize scouting and will only build one scout. With the first 500 you buy a settler and either a scout or a worker. This gives you a massive headstart and one early wonder is way better then even then frances UA towards a early start. You immediatly settle that natural wonder as soon as possible.
If you find a second natural you buy or work on buying a settler or getting one with liberty and settling that on it asap. If you find a faith natural your guarenteed a religion. You always take the natural wonder pantheon which gives 8 faith a turn for each natural wonder worked (4 normally) Yes that pantheon makes each natural wonder worth a shrine, temple and stonehedge on top of its doubled bonus. Then when your first to found a religion you make sure you get holy warriors and pagodas. Holy warriors combined with your faith will win you the game in most instances. I've usually make betwen 25-50 faith a turn with spain and can buy a composite for 100 faith in quick games.
500 gold alone is unbalanced. The combination of 500 gold with buying a settler with rushing to settle it with the 8 faith pantheon with holy warriors is so unbalanced its virtually impossible to lose the game if you are first to find a natural wonder. People who say its luck dont realize if you rush 3 scouts and eventually a trieme your almost guarenteed to find one or 2 naturals most games. I'd say ive found one first every game ive played maybe 20 except for 1 and I have another where I didn't find one first until mid game.
When you judge spain you can't just judge the 500 gold or double natural bonus. You have to judge them by how much it can't be abused when you combine multiple scouts, buying settlers, faith pantheon and all the faith you can spend.
There's usually at least 4 or 5 naturals even on small pangea maps.
Any competent player will build at least 2 to 3 scouts. On top of the starting warrior you can scout the map extremely fast. Most games you will find a natural wonder by turn 10 since most players dont prioritize scouting and will only build one scout. With the first 500 you buy a settler and either a scout or a worker. This gives you a massive headstart and one early wonder is way better then even then frances UA towards a early start. You immediatly settle that natural wonder as soon as possible.
If you find a second natural you buy or work on buying a settler or getting one with liberty and settling that on it asap. If you find a faith natural your guarenteed a religion. You always take the natural wonder pantheon which gives 8 faith a turn for each natural wonder worked (4 normally) Yes that pantheon makes each natural wonder worth a shrine, temple and stonehedge on top of its doubled bonus. Then when your first to found a religion you make sure you get holy warriors and pagodas. Holy warriors combined with your faith will win you the game in most instances. I've usually make betwen 25-50 faith a turn with spain and can buy a composite for 100 faith in quick games.
500 gold alone is unbalanced. The combination of 500 gold with buying a settler with rushing to settle it with the 8 faith pantheon with holy warriors is so unbalanced its virtually impossible to lose the game if you are first to find a natural wonder. People who say its luck dont realize if you rush 3 scouts and eventually a trieme your almost guarenteed to find one or 2 naturals most games. I'd say ive found one first every game ive played maybe 20 except for 1 and I have another where I didn't find one first until mid game.
When you judge spain you can't just judge the 500 gold or double natural bonus. You have to judge them by how much it can't be abused when you combine multiple scouts, buying settlers, faith pantheon and all the faith you can spend.
turkeypotpie
Chieftain
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It's the early settler (~500g) and worker (~300g) which are the big concern. That's why liberty forces you to spend ENTIRE POLICIES on them. Early units for a rush could be a big deal too.
But after a few cities are down, 1000g isn't a huge deal.
As OP said, it's an RNG thing. Some people don't like a lot of RNG in their games. I personally don't like it that much myself, at least early on in the game.
PhilBowles
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It seems a more natural fit than it does for Babylon - that one always struck me as odd; a strong science civ shouldn't really be an ancient-era one, especially since the Great Scientist strategy doesn't really get started until Education (when you can start getting GP points in meaningful enough amounts for the Babylon UA to kick in), and how many great Babylonian intellectuals can you name? Even the writing bonus is more appropriate to the Sumerians (who developed cuneiform) than to the Babylonians. Babylon should probably have a culture focus more than anything; their main legacies are administrative - legal codes, records or legends of their civic architecture, the development of urban administrative and trading castes, the 7-day week etc - rather than scientific.
While I don't know a lot about Korean history, at least for Sejong as leader both the science focus and the UA do fit very well, better than many civs' UAs. You'd be hard-pressed to find any long-lasting civ that can be accurately summed up by one type of game focus, as Civ factions necessarily are.
Off-topic, was I just not looking carefully enough before, or is there a lot more information in the Civilopedia backgrounds for the civs and leaders than there was in vanilla? I recall Askia having little more than his intro paragraph before, now there's a detailed biography with a note of his legacy and lasting reputation at the end.
Well Hammurabi was reputed to have invented the code of laws, taxes, and beer. A mixed legacy I suppose.
Gort
Emperor
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I just gave the huns a go for the first time - I think the guy who said that they were great for knocking a couple of dudes out of the game but that that didn't really gain you all that much was spot on.
After my initial rush (four horse archers, two battering rams and a great general) had taken out England and Germany and a couple of city states (gotta love mercantile states keeping their resources when you conquer them) my units were obsolete. Arabia had peacefully built cities and was basically in a similar situation to me, except the entire world hated me, I had the honour tree mostly filled out when I'd rather have liberty, and my civilisation bonuses were basically over.
Yeah, it sucks to get rushed by huns. But I don't think they're actually any more or less likely to win the game than any other civ. I actually think they MUST rush, and rush early, otherwise they're going to get totally left behind.
And I think that's a shame, as the AI won't be nearly as focused at early attacks as a human player, so the huns will be used only by people who play Civ like a deathmatch, or badly as an AI.
Edit: Oh, and it sucks that neither unique unit upgrades properly. It's hard to believe that they still haven't dealt with the issue of units being left with useless promotions when they upgrade!
After my initial rush (four horse archers, two battering rams and a great general) had taken out England and Germany and a couple of city states (gotta love mercantile states keeping their resources when you conquer them) my units were obsolete. Arabia had peacefully built cities and was basically in a similar situation to me, except the entire world hated me, I had the honour tree mostly filled out when I'd rather have liberty, and my civilisation bonuses were basically over.
Yeah, it sucks to get rushed by huns. But I don't think they're actually any more or less likely to win the game than any other civ. I actually think they MUST rush, and rush early, otherwise they're going to get totally left behind.
And I think that's a shame, as the AI won't be nearly as focused at early attacks as a human player, so the huns will be used only by people who play Civ like a deathmatch, or badly as an AI.
Edit: Oh, and it sucks that neither unique unit upgrades properly. It's hard to believe that they still haven't dealt with the issue of units being left with useless promotions when they upgrade!
Maybe think of it this way:
"Sorry Spain, you're playing as Siam with City-States off, or a landlocked Carthage, or Polynesia on Great Planes. Have fun playing as bonus-less Civ until Around the Renaissance! Oh, and I'll kick you 200g by late Classical, and maybe 300g more sometime around industrial."
or
"Congrats Spain! You found GBR/El Dorado/any other two wonders! You're now playing as if you were a Deity AI! Have fun!"
(Obvious hyperbole is obvious, but while you don't get their yield bonuses, you pretty much get their horridly overpowered starting advantage. Or even more than they do. And unlike the AI you know how to use it.)
The fact that either one of these poles can (and does) frequently happen does not mean Spain is balanced, good, bad, or well designed. It can't be measured on the same scales we measure other civs because unlike other civs that are situation dependent, it bounces between two (imbalanced) extremes with little-to-no balanced equilibrium, and further, it actually comes down to 95% RNG (5% did you build a scout first). Unlike, say, a water-dependent civ which may bite you occasionally on random/fractal/shuffle (but the you should have avoided said civ anyways unless you want to handicap yourself), but you obviously won't pick on a Pangaea.
"Sorry Spain, you're playing as Siam with City-States off, or a landlocked Carthage, or Polynesia on Great Planes. Have fun playing as bonus-less Civ until Around the Renaissance! Oh, and I'll kick you 200g by late Classical, and maybe 300g more sometime around industrial."
or
"Congrats Spain! You found GBR/El Dorado/any other two wonders! You're now playing as if you were a Deity AI! Have fun!"
(Obvious hyperbole is obvious, but while you don't get their yield bonuses, you pretty much get their horridly overpowered starting advantage. Or even more than they do. And unlike the AI you know how to use it.)
The fact that either one of these poles can (and does) frequently happen does not mean Spain is balanced, good, bad, or well designed. It can't be measured on the same scales we measure other civs because unlike other civs that are situation dependent, it bounces between two (imbalanced) extremes with little-to-no balanced equilibrium, and further, it actually comes down to 95% RNG (5% did you build a scout first). Unlike, say, a water-dependent civ which may bite you occasionally on random/fractal/shuffle (but the you should have avoided said civ anyways unless you want to handicap yourself), but you obviously won't pick on a Pangaea.
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
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This.
This is nothing like "Siam with no city states" or England on a Great Plains map.
and the 1/10 times I don't find a natural wonder early its not hard to adjust with Spain. Its not hard to adjust with any civ - but even late game wonder sniping turns differences.
The 2-3 scout advantage just turns heels. Holy Warriors for most civs is almost entirely unsustainable. But its pretty easy to get 20-40 faith early game most MP games about... 40-50% of the time as Spain to have this as a workable strategy.
==========================================
And again with the Huns. If you can't consolidate the various empires you conquer early on, it's the player's fault not the civs. Once you take so much its easy to consolidate and grow even more powerful for teching after. And in multiplayer (You all forget this is multiplayer where there is no AI to get obscene advantages) In the early game with the new gold changes, it is harder to upgrade your entire army right away. Just march and swarm zerg kill any upgraded units and continue marching.
Like I have said, with the ease and cheapness of the Horse Archers it is incredibly easy to swarm and kill off civs. Babylon with Crossbows and Walls of Babylon? No problem. This is multi. Just outwit and swarm.
PhilBowles
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It is a shame, because the Huns do play very badly as an AI - it's not helped that the AI is hampered in its early rush (and city defence) by its conviction that Battering Rams are a type of Spearman, and so their ideal uses include protecting the Great General, preferentially moving into rough terrain to maximise their defensive bonus, and standing their ground against enemy melee units or as a screen to protect the Horse Archers.
In games where I've faced them Attila rarely lasts long, and when he does he has difficulty expanding as his AI is apparently programmed to expect its early cities to be captured capitals (since it razes everything else anyway) and doesn't seem able to adapt to a strategy that actually involves settlers (the few times I've encountered Hunnic settlers they tend to loiter around at the edge of his territory unsure of their purpose, until a kind soul visits and directs them to work on my farms and in my mines).
And what makes it even more of a shame is that I actually like having Attila in games - his AI has attitude, if he does capture cities the whole razing thing is an interesting dynamic since other AIs never do (except CSes in vanilla, but in G&K my experience of CSes is that they're so passive they're very unlikely to even try to take cities any more), and his schoolyard bully routine is spot-on - I'm always getting messages that CS X has been bullied by the Huns, sometimes accompanied by Attila popping up saying "Oh, I'm sorry, I seem to have inadvertently bullied a city-state under your protection, please forgive me. And don't mind those battering rams parked outside your capital."
No, it's a question of game mechanics. You're taking early-game cities which by their nature have few buildings when you capture them, you're halving their population while others are building up their new cities, and you're losing turns and production to the city's revolt period, while at the same time your early unit focus necessitates that you (a) have few workers to improve the cities immediately, and (b) unless you've made judicious use of bullying, you don't have the gold to buy courthouses (or workers), because such a high proportion of your early gold income is being spent on unit maintenance. It's irrelevant how well you play, since none of these are strategic considerations, they're all consequences of an approach that relies on getting its early expansion through conquest.
And in multiplayer it's the fault of the players of the other civs if the Huns have any kind of advantage. The city positioning advantage is partly a result of spawning, since capitals tend to spawn in or near the best spots in their immediate area, but is also a result of poor city placement by AIs. Human players should be building cities in places that are nearly as good as the sites the Huns capture, and without the early loss of 2-3 pop through conquest and X turns of rebellion. And if the Huns' closest neighbour is - as in your example - Babylon, there is no excuse at all if the Hun rush works. If the Babylonian player hasn't used the time the Huns use to reach their critical techs to get to Archery and Masonry, and then build the relevant units, they deserve to be "outwitted". Yes, if the Babylonian player is a bad player who relies on an inflexible "Babylon must beeline Writing, because that's what Babylon always does" mindset, he'll lose, but the whole point of strategy is that it adapts to the situation you find yourself in. A capital with Walls of Babylon is inherently difficult to take early on - add horse archer-resistant bowmen and the ranged attack bonus from the wall, and the Huns don't have a chance.
If they're up against Persia, they face unique spearmen - tough for the Huns to deal with generally without an equivalent of their own - who are very resistant to archer fire, and require only two techs to reach. Huns lose.
If they're up against Greece, and they aren't the very first civ they hit, the Greeks have Companion Cavalry. I don't even need to elaborate on the effect that has. Huns lose. If they are the first civ they hit, you still have to contend with Hoplites murdering your horses, such that even if you take Athens you won't be moving on to take any other cities in the immediate future.
If they're up against Rome, the three techs it takes to get the Huns underway are enough to get the Romans to Iron Working - it's slightly more hit and miss since that route deprives Rome of early archers and relies on them finding iron. But if they do find iron, or if they're the second or third target (by which time they'll likely also have ballistae) ... Huns lose.
Oh, and one of the reasons I've seen the Huns have so little success in my games? Mostly when they've spawned next to me, I've been playing the Maya. No Hunnic strategy you can name can successfully rush a civ that doesn't need any tech at all to get archers and which can rush-buy them in quantity very early. And to think you're claiming that the Huns getting cheap archers that don't require horses is overpowered... And that's without pointing out that the Maya tech faster earlier than any other civ in the game, so they'll likely have a tech advantage and defence even if they're the first civ you meet.
etc. etc. True, the Huns will do a lot better early on against civs without early UUs, but everyone can get spearmen and archers before the Huns hit. Everyone can potentially build walls and, horses permitting, horsemen (and often composite bows or swordsmen) before they hit the second time.
You forget that the AI gets obscene advantages because it's never going to be as good as all but the weakest human players in terms of strategy or combat. Yes, if you find your Huns playing against people who play exactly like an AI with no advantages, the Huns will probably win. So will any other competent player. It's unlikely the AI would do any of the above because it doesn't have the ability to adapt to the identity of its nearest rival and select the appropriate techs/response to counter it at that stage in the game, yet none of these counters are exactly the height of complex strategy to either come up with or execute.
Correct; this belongs in the other pole, which is also broken but in the opposite direction. Generally, if you can settle a NW, you're very likely to have found it first. Especially since we're talking about MP (I think?) in which case everyone just gets a settler and a warrior to start and not the blanket of units the AI starts with on higher difficulties.
So to add to my earlier comment: those games where you can take advantage of settling a wonder (or two) you're likely in the "you got an insane advantage within the first 20 turns" side of things, and in the games where you can't take advantage of the settling you'll get a couple hundred (much later) gold kicked your way – gold which does you very little at this point since the real thing that destabilizes Spain in the first place is getting a huge bonus early. When both of those two conditions are met, it's insane. When just one is met (same bonus later, or smaller bonus early), it's OK, sure, but boring and unimpressive. And I know one can be perfectly capable of adjusting to a low-results game, but again, I'd like to point out that this doesn't mean it's designed well – IMO, of course. Civ's abilities shouldn't vacillate between "do-nothing" and "overpower everyone else's" based almost exclusively on a roll of the dice, because you can't create balance with that system (and both sides of the imbalance are unfun). I certainly think there's room for chance in games like Civ; ruins and variable combat outcomes add spice to it and contribute greatly to its replay value. But this is the absolute wrong place to introduce chance, because to have chance work in a strategy game that strives for balance, the random elements either need to apply across the board or cluster more heavily around the mean, thereby softening the blow when it doesn't work out and moderating the advantage when it does. And Spain's UA does neither of these, at least in my experience.
[edit]I should also mention that number of city-states has a huge impact on how people perceive Spain's extra yield ability. I usually play with the default number, and city-states settle a vastly disproportionate number of wonders for how little land they occupy. At least of the ones that are worth settling, since many NWs are biased toward being in junker locations, which of course are the ones the CSes usually leave alone.
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
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Do you play multiplayer?
If so then good you can defend yourself. But I have found even vs good players who defend themselves early and prepare for an attack... its still not that h ard with decent tactics to use mobile composite barchers to take on any civ. Even with atlatlists it isnt hard to take out with tactics. Move your Horse archers through the jungle and swarm kill piece by piece. Then use a pincer movement to take the city. Often times doesn't matter how prepared a plyer is with the Huns. The fact Horse archers are so mobile makes them the weapon they are. Mobility is power I have taken out with smaller armies big armies in multiplayer with mobile civs like this. (Another game I like to show as an example, number on e in the worl military babylon with rifles and artillery I took out with Horse Archers/Camel Archers (City state with Horse Archers did help I admit).
PhilBowles
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Yes, but in a fixed group rather than random matches against people of indeterminate skill, and we tend not to play aggressively (a general feeling that there's not a lot of point playing a Civ game rather than, say, Starcraft just to wipe out the other guys early on), so none of us has tried using the Huns.
Where are you getting your "swarm"? Horse Archers cost more than archers, let alone atlatlists, and are available later. It doesn't sound like good play if the other player has his units sufficiently isolated that they can be taken out "piece by piece".
Mobile as they are, horse archers have a range of 2 (jungle, woods or hills notwithstanding) and can't move after attacking - if you aren't losing them (or the rams they aren't protecting while they focus-fire a single atlatlist) in numbers every time they snipe an enemy unit, I wouldn't describe the other guy as playing well. Especially not if you've reached a game stage where the defender has access to horsemen. And every enemy unit they're focusing all their fire on is a distraction from all the other enemy units that are killing your battering rams. Putting up a defence does not mean building two spearmen and an archer...
And this would be the good player who'd teched as far as Artillery, knew he was up against Hunnic Horse (and Camel) Archers, and hadn't built any Lancers? Your example fills me with confidence that you're rolling over great players with the overpowered Huns...
Although this and the earlier point about Horse Archers having a bad promotion structure does make one point about a gap in the unit tree - there are no ranged cavalry after Chariot Archers for most civs, which is odd. All the moreso since they took the effort to 'complete' the crossbowman tech tree in Gods & Kings. It should be easy enough to bridge the gap - add a ranged cavalry unit for the medieval era (which Keshiks and Camel Archers can replace instead of knights), make Cavalry ranged (so that the Lancer becomes the melee cavalry unit of the Renaissance and early Industrial period) or add a mounted gunner unit, and eventually upgrade into a ranged armour unit (perhaps Tanks and Modern Armour).
Gabriel Pyyrhic
Warlord
I have always thought they should add an option to the advanced player setup that allows you to fill slots with NOT EVER PlayerX, essentially meaning it randomly picks any player but playerx for that slot, and will not use playerx for any other slot.
That way people could take out those civs they don't want easily enough.
It would also allow you to create radom matches of certain flavours of civs, ie want random players for a historical old world match, well just take out the Amercian Civs and some of the Asian ones. Want modern civs then take out the ancient ones. Want ancient ones then take out the modern ones. Sick to death of always ending up with playerx in your games, well take him/her out.
Allows choice without wrapping civs in nerf.
FTR I think Spain is fine (and fun to play) and the Huns add some spice to the early game. My own experience with multiplayer has only been competitive hotseat and competitive PBEM (essentially hotseat saves). I don't know about standard multiplayer.
That way people could take out those civs they don't want easily enough.
It would also allow you to create radom matches of certain flavours of civs, ie want random players for a historical old world match, well just take out the Amercian Civs and some of the Asian ones. Want modern civs then take out the ancient ones. Want ancient ones then take out the modern ones. Sick to death of always ending up with playerx in your games, well take him/her out.
Allows choice without wrapping civs in nerf.
FTR I think Spain is fine (and fun to play) and the Huns add some spice to the early game. My own experience with multiplayer has only been competitive hotseat and competitive PBEM (essentially hotseat saves). I don't know about standard multiplayer.
Rathelon
Prince
I'm playing my first game with the Huns, and I found them powerful early on (shockingly so). I had taken out 3 civs by the medieval era, but that is when things change considerably.
The battering rams can no longer withstand city bombardment (nor enemy units), and they dont upgrade until trebuchet. They become regular trebuchet with Cover promotion (which you would probably have from catapults if you were warmongering early anyhow).
Horse archers are the same ranged strength as composite bowmen, so their attack is still on par, but the enemy will be fielding pikemen by then, and will easily kill the horse archers.
I dont see a problem with their early power. The developers use the unique units/buildings/traits in order for civs to have a surge at a historically appropriate time.
The battering rams can no longer withstand city bombardment (nor enemy units), and they dont upgrade until trebuchet. They become regular trebuchet with Cover promotion (which you would probably have from catapults if you were warmongering early anyhow).
Horse archers are the same ranged strength as composite bowmen, so their attack is still on par, but the enemy will be fielding pikemen by then, and will easily kill the horse archers.
I dont see a problem with their early power. The developers use the unique units/buildings/traits in order for civs to have a surge at a historically appropriate time.
The_Quasar
King
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Nods, that's why I agreed with you about excluding certain civs from multi-player games.
That really is the only way to realistically fix this, unless at some stage Fraxis introduce a slightly different setup for multi-player, to help fix imbalances in multi-player, which I would welcome.
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
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Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
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Which is ultimately why I can't see a fix for the Huns.
They helped balance Babylon a bit, that is nice to see I admit.
But - the real solution is making sure your host bans them from the game.
Erneiz Hyde
Warlord
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An easy fix for the Huns is to make HAs actually need horses. It would make starting with Animal Husbandry more sensible.
PhilBowles
Deity
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See above. You can't rely on getting horses with your first city (once I get Animal Husbandry, I rarely find I have horses near my capital), and it's not strategically interesting to force the Huns' entire play to rest on the random prospect of having horses, since settling a new source would slow them too much for the rush to work. It also, as I pointed out before, "fixes" nothing, quite aside from the bias inherent in assuming there is anything in need of fixing - if you do find horses, the early rush doesn't use any more horse archers than you'd have horses anyway, since it's not common to find horse tiles with fewer than 4.
Having Animal Husbandry early makes a lot of sense for the Huns, it has nothing to do with needing to ride horses. Sheep and horses are good production tiles, and Huns get +1 production from pastures - when you're rushing early you need to be able to produce units quickly. You also have small populations, so you need the same tiles that give you production to give you decent food. The best tiles for food + production tend to be resource tiles that need pastures to improve them, even without the Hunnic bonus - hence Animal Husbandry.
