BanTingyun
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2016
- Messages
- 77
Reports on my testing of the hippus (and some frozen issues that came up):
1) The civilpedia text says that the hippus unique jousting tilt replacement "field of the horselords" trains units up to double the xp of the jousting tilt, however, actual numbers are 20xp vs 16xp, a much smaller difference. Perhaps sometime after the civilpedia text was written, the jousting tilt was buffed, but the hippus UB was forgotten to be given a similar buff? Maybe the hippus one would be raised to 32xp? However, the training building for other unit types, training yard and archery range, max out at 10 xp, so perhaps better to lower the jousting tilt (though the tilt comes much later in the tech tree than the infantry and archery ones, so its advantage is probably justified).
2) The Hippus are one of a small group of civs blocked from both the cannon and the aquebus units, rendering gunpowder useless to them (ships being of very little value). For some civs the reason is obvious (ie, dark elves), for others, somewhat justified (ie, the calabim may be afraid of the massed common man kind of army that making use of firearms entails, and stick to the more reactionary feudal systems), but for the Hippus I think it is unpersuasive on both game mechanics and thematic grounds. First, as a matter of game mechanics, the hippus don't have a great deal of uniqueness to their army options, having only a single unique unit, a replacement to the mercenary. Thus it seems harsh to block them from a base unit, when other civs have a great many more unique units and still get access. For thematic reasons, there seems to be little reason the hippus would not exploit every opportunity to equip such an army--they are more of a common-man friendly military force from my reading of the lore. Moreover, there is nothing inherently in conflict with the horse nomad theme and gunpowder (the Mongols being early in the use of gunpowder in combat, the Qing dynasty founding Manchus making good use of cannons, etc)
3) If an additional unique unit were desired, I think the hippus could really use a medium cavalry unique unit added at stirrups tech (alongside the horse archer unit). For a horsemen based race, it is surprising that their lineup is no more extensive than your average ffh civ, and to have only light (horse archers) and heavy (knights) cavalry seems like something is missing. At any rate, they could really use a unique unit, and another unit with a diverse skillset complementing those two units (and the war chariots) with amother niche, probably similar to the horseman unit but slightly higher stats, would really help round out their ability to field a cavalry dominant army. Maybe wih a graphic similar to the mounted mercenary, but enough strength to be worthwhile alongside horse archers. Also, on big maps where the knight national unit limit really caps things, it would prevent the feeling that they have basically become an all horse acher cavalry (horse archery never being so dominant in their theme to justify entirely suplanting all other types of cavalry).
4) I don't see the need to block the alchemists lab. Blocking the artisan's workshop makes sense, given their warlike nature, but the alchemist lab is denying them a +10 percent research bonus that every other civ mostly gets, which seems overly harsh, especially considering their lineup of unique buildings is very short (just the one jousting tilt replacement).
5) If it is possible in the code to give a civ a second tier starting technology instead of a first, I'd recomend removing agriculture and giving them animal husbandry. True, modern day historians recognize that pastoral nomadism is a later stage developing out of agrarian societies, but under the assumption that much was forgotten during the age of ice, I'd say have them forget how to farm but remember how to build pastures for their horses.
6) Fiacra the North Wind is 4/5 +2 cold, while the Aquilan (knight replacements for the frozen) are 7/5 +2 cold +2 lightning +1 additional cold from ice demon promotion and can use bronze, iron, or mithril weapons, but otherwise identical in abilities. More importantly, they are much, much better than the knights they replace. This raises several issues.
a) The Aquilan (12/10 with bonuses) is overpowered versus the knights (11/9) it replaces with the additional cold from ice demon, it is 1 more attack and defense, it has spells from channeling 2, it calls blizzards, it starts with ice 1, it withers its target, it is immune to unholy and cold damage, and it FLIES--and it costs 30 less to build than a knight.Meaning the Frozen high end cavalry units makes the hippus high end cavalry unit look like a total loser.
b) It is only a single unit graphic, so not a massed army, and yet it makes Fiacra, Mulcarn's favorite and presumably of the same race, look like a complete weakling, when it should be the most powerful representative of its race.
Suggestions: Move Fiacra to later in the tech tree, and make slightly more powerful than the Aquilan, or at least closer in power. And if possible make the Aquilan have multiple unit graphics, meaning it is a massed unit justifying its strength.
More importantly, nerf the Aquilan heavily. At the least, take away its ability to use metal weapons, as I can see no justfication for that use. Also, probably eliminate its +2 lightning ability and add 2 to its base abilities (Fiacra doesn't use lightning bonuses), and pull off the ice demon promotion (presumably it isn't one, or else Fiacra should have that), and block its ability to automatically gain ice demon from being frozen civ (if that is possible, if not, reduce its cold bonus to 1), which would subtract 3 from its strength if we assume iron weapons and bring it to 2 under a knight at iron weapons.
Which is really the minimum nerf needed, and probably more would be justified. By comparison, the doviolo and dwarven cavalry replacements trade 1 mobility in exchange for +1 to their attack and defense. To justify that long list of promotions, powers, and flying the Aquilan gets, a -2 strength from a normal knight seems the minimum.
BTW, this problem occurs elsewhere in the frozen troop roster, with the magic combat bonuses making them universally more powerful. Ice golems are 6/8 with bonuses compared to 5/6 longbowmen. Perhaps their inability to enter warm terrain should be considered as making up for it, but since they are primarilly defensive units, and the frozen spread cold terrain through conquest, really they just have a much better city defender. The winter wolf is strength 5 with its cold boost and ice demon factored in, vs strength 4 for normal hunters. The nive is strength 8 vs ranger strength 7. I think the creator didn't balance for the ice demon promotion granting +1 cold combat, not to mention that most of their units get special abilities, bonuses in the terrains they are likely to fight in, and pass negative promotions to the enemies they fight (through ice demon or otherwise). Though elsewhere it seems to have recognized they are stronger, but was incorrect about other areas (the nives are described in civilpedia as better at fighting but slower than rangers--nope, same speed, but the stronger part is right).
Their troop roster also features inappropriate access to weapons. Aside from the above discussed giant birds with metal weapons, the kocrachon unit, a cloud of biting locusts, is allowed to equip bronze, iron, or mithril. And their nives units, a big bear, is allowed to carry hawks, although that might be justified in some symbiotic relationship.
Since the ice demon promotion is granted automatically to their units, I imagine their normal units to be likewise overpowered by about +1 strength.
Hitting them with the nerf bat could start by removing the +1 cold combat from ice demon racial trait, removing metal weapon capability from the insect and bird units, and nerfing the heck out of their flying bird knight replacement as outlined above. Also, perhaps remove their access to cannons, it doesn't fit and they don't need it.
7) The master buildings (rancher, etc) have a weird tooltip where they say "requires you own at least 1, you have 0" when you otherwise do not meet their other requirements.
8) Blessed armor (mounted) is enabled for beast and mounted units, while its neutral and evil counterparts are limited to mounted units.
1) The civilpedia text says that the hippus unique jousting tilt replacement "field of the horselords" trains units up to double the xp of the jousting tilt, however, actual numbers are 20xp vs 16xp, a much smaller difference. Perhaps sometime after the civilpedia text was written, the jousting tilt was buffed, but the hippus UB was forgotten to be given a similar buff? Maybe the hippus one would be raised to 32xp? However, the training building for other unit types, training yard and archery range, max out at 10 xp, so perhaps better to lower the jousting tilt (though the tilt comes much later in the tech tree than the infantry and archery ones, so its advantage is probably justified).
2) The Hippus are one of a small group of civs blocked from both the cannon and the aquebus units, rendering gunpowder useless to them (ships being of very little value). For some civs the reason is obvious (ie, dark elves), for others, somewhat justified (ie, the calabim may be afraid of the massed common man kind of army that making use of firearms entails, and stick to the more reactionary feudal systems), but for the Hippus I think it is unpersuasive on both game mechanics and thematic grounds. First, as a matter of game mechanics, the hippus don't have a great deal of uniqueness to their army options, having only a single unique unit, a replacement to the mercenary. Thus it seems harsh to block them from a base unit, when other civs have a great many more unique units and still get access. For thematic reasons, there seems to be little reason the hippus would not exploit every opportunity to equip such an army--they are more of a common-man friendly military force from my reading of the lore. Moreover, there is nothing inherently in conflict with the horse nomad theme and gunpowder (the Mongols being early in the use of gunpowder in combat, the Qing dynasty founding Manchus making good use of cannons, etc)
3) If an additional unique unit were desired, I think the hippus could really use a medium cavalry unique unit added at stirrups tech (alongside the horse archer unit). For a horsemen based race, it is surprising that their lineup is no more extensive than your average ffh civ, and to have only light (horse archers) and heavy (knights) cavalry seems like something is missing. At any rate, they could really use a unique unit, and another unit with a diverse skillset complementing those two units (and the war chariots) with amother niche, probably similar to the horseman unit but slightly higher stats, would really help round out their ability to field a cavalry dominant army. Maybe wih a graphic similar to the mounted mercenary, but enough strength to be worthwhile alongside horse archers. Also, on big maps where the knight national unit limit really caps things, it would prevent the feeling that they have basically become an all horse acher cavalry (horse archery never being so dominant in their theme to justify entirely suplanting all other types of cavalry).
4) I don't see the need to block the alchemists lab. Blocking the artisan's workshop makes sense, given their warlike nature, but the alchemist lab is denying them a +10 percent research bonus that every other civ mostly gets, which seems overly harsh, especially considering their lineup of unique buildings is very short (just the one jousting tilt replacement).
5) If it is possible in the code to give a civ a second tier starting technology instead of a first, I'd recomend removing agriculture and giving them animal husbandry. True, modern day historians recognize that pastoral nomadism is a later stage developing out of agrarian societies, but under the assumption that much was forgotten during the age of ice, I'd say have them forget how to farm but remember how to build pastures for their horses.
6) Fiacra the North Wind is 4/5 +2 cold, while the Aquilan (knight replacements for the frozen) are 7/5 +2 cold +2 lightning +1 additional cold from ice demon promotion and can use bronze, iron, or mithril weapons, but otherwise identical in abilities. More importantly, they are much, much better than the knights they replace. This raises several issues.
a) The Aquilan (12/10 with bonuses) is overpowered versus the knights (11/9) it replaces with the additional cold from ice demon, it is 1 more attack and defense, it has spells from channeling 2, it calls blizzards, it starts with ice 1, it withers its target, it is immune to unholy and cold damage, and it FLIES--and it costs 30 less to build than a knight.Meaning the Frozen high end cavalry units makes the hippus high end cavalry unit look like a total loser.
b) It is only a single unit graphic, so not a massed army, and yet it makes Fiacra, Mulcarn's favorite and presumably of the same race, look like a complete weakling, when it should be the most powerful representative of its race.
Suggestions: Move Fiacra to later in the tech tree, and make slightly more powerful than the Aquilan, or at least closer in power. And if possible make the Aquilan have multiple unit graphics, meaning it is a massed unit justifying its strength.
More importantly, nerf the Aquilan heavily. At the least, take away its ability to use metal weapons, as I can see no justfication for that use. Also, probably eliminate its +2 lightning ability and add 2 to its base abilities (Fiacra doesn't use lightning bonuses), and pull off the ice demon promotion (presumably it isn't one, or else Fiacra should have that), and block its ability to automatically gain ice demon from being frozen civ (if that is possible, if not, reduce its cold bonus to 1), which would subtract 3 from its strength if we assume iron weapons and bring it to 2 under a knight at iron weapons.
Which is really the minimum nerf needed, and probably more would be justified. By comparison, the doviolo and dwarven cavalry replacements trade 1 mobility in exchange for +1 to their attack and defense. To justify that long list of promotions, powers, and flying the Aquilan gets, a -2 strength from a normal knight seems the minimum.
BTW, this problem occurs elsewhere in the frozen troop roster, with the magic combat bonuses making them universally more powerful. Ice golems are 6/8 with bonuses compared to 5/6 longbowmen. Perhaps their inability to enter warm terrain should be considered as making up for it, but since they are primarilly defensive units, and the frozen spread cold terrain through conquest, really they just have a much better city defender. The winter wolf is strength 5 with its cold boost and ice demon factored in, vs strength 4 for normal hunters. The nive is strength 8 vs ranger strength 7. I think the creator didn't balance for the ice demon promotion granting +1 cold combat, not to mention that most of their units get special abilities, bonuses in the terrains they are likely to fight in, and pass negative promotions to the enemies they fight (through ice demon or otherwise). Though elsewhere it seems to have recognized they are stronger, but was incorrect about other areas (the nives are described in civilpedia as better at fighting but slower than rangers--nope, same speed, but the stronger part is right).
Their troop roster also features inappropriate access to weapons. Aside from the above discussed giant birds with metal weapons, the kocrachon unit, a cloud of biting locusts, is allowed to equip bronze, iron, or mithril. And their nives units, a big bear, is allowed to carry hawks, although that might be justified in some symbiotic relationship.
Since the ice demon promotion is granted automatically to their units, I imagine their normal units to be likewise overpowered by about +1 strength.
Hitting them with the nerf bat could start by removing the +1 cold combat from ice demon racial trait, removing metal weapon capability from the insect and bird units, and nerfing the heck out of their flying bird knight replacement as outlined above. Also, perhaps remove their access to cannons, it doesn't fit and they don't need it.
7) The master buildings (rancher, etc) have a weird tooltip where they say "requires you own at least 1, you have 0" when you otherwise do not meet their other requirements.
8) Blessed armor (mounted) is enabled for beast and mounted units, while its neutral and evil counterparts are limited to mounted units.
At any rate, it was fun debating with you. 
