What balance changes are you hoping for?

mitsho said:

Having written that down, it's now clear to me why that screws up the CS UU thing...

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Hahaha... that is great! Bug Tracking 101~!

On top of swordsmen being weak, it doesnt even make sense historcally. Swords cleaned up the battlefield, while pikes were only used to take the first hit/ divide the enemy army.

1. Nerf Science:
-National College % bonus from 50 to 25
-Great Scientist providing 50% boost for 8 turns instead current special ability
-Switch Rationalism opener with Rationalism finisher

2. Buff Piety
Since Piety will be overhauled I will just state that it should be available since beginning.

3. Combat in general
-City ranged combat strength nerfed
a) Ranged units should be used to clean enemy units (nerf against cities)
b) Any kind of artillery units (catapults etc.) should be almost ignoring ranged attacks while be extremely fragile to melee opponents. They should be like workers; stacking with combat units, but could be stolen by enemy. Main power against fortified cities.
c) Mounted units ignoring zone control of infantry would be nice
d) Melee units should take a little less damage while attacking cities; possibility to conquer unprotected city without heavy artillery, requiring only more time
e) edit: Flight Combat: Fight for the skies special edition: Make Fighters significant.

4. Combat in details
-special ranged UU replacing melee units are messing promotions
-mentioned Pikeman - Swordsman issue
-and some more
-edit: Guided Missile need some love

@ OP:

I agree with most of your reasoning but not the planes.
I believe in fact that bombers are way too week. Especially vs Cities.
Against a fully fortified (all defensive buildings) a bomber (even a stealth one) with the bonus against cities promo is relatively week (even without anti air into the mix).
Now add into the mix things like increased defense from faith/polices/wonders and things like that and the only use the bombers have is vs units. And lets face it: How many of them will you have stationed in a city that will be able to take out the big carpet of doom if it is on par tech wise? Especially since every unit damages the bomber, even for a small margin.

Even the U.S. unique didn't impress me in my last game. All it did was scratching me, to the point where I retaliated with a nuclear strike and learned that it destroys all stationed aircraft in a city too

For such an expensive (money/hammers/tech to be researched) they fall short IMHO. Especially since their promo is quite tedious: You need a fully militarized city (luckily with some wonders too) and constant war to make them good.

Just my humble opinion (rant?)

One thing I would like to see is more terrain balance. Or to put into more context no more useless terrain. Tundra for example is by far the most useless tiles IMHO. To make them worthwhile as a start you need religion and a huge dose of luck.
On the other hand jungle and flood planes are no brainers.
IMHO we need more options on doing something with certain tiles, either through faith/research or something else. But it needs to be in the early eras.

Also I would like to see city state relations/questions be more of a mechanic and not so luck based. Right now I complete city state quests on whims and free time. Also their quests are extremely random: Who is going to have a great admiral during the first 30 turns?

I've already ranted about all those points, so of course I am in agreement

Swordsman may still need addition tweaking, but I would really like to see science techs and buildings spread out a bit more in the tech tree. Swords don't take all that long to get to, but if you are trying to force philosophy and education on top of it just to keep up in tech, that is a lot of beakers needed. I suppose what I am getting at is half the problem is no logical reason to deviate to swords since NC, universities, and pikes are all on a completely separate tech path. With smaller science bonuses spread over more techs on both halves of the tech tree, players could take that detour to swords and not completely screw over their empire in the process.

I don't see that happening though, so I suppose tweaking some of the numbers is the best we can hope for.

Same thing with lancer--I think at best they may fudge with the numbers a bit, but I doubt we are going to see any major overhauls on tech placement and the like.

pilot00 said:

@ OP:

I agree with most of your reasoning but not the planes.
I believe in fact that bombers are way too week. Especially vs Cities.

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Likely to balance out their ability to have unlimited stacks. Just for the sake of discussion, are you implying that you wouldn't mind seeing a cap on planes per city if their relative power was also increased? Because as it is now, a stack of 20 planes will clear out anything. They are weak, but you can also attack a single hex a million times.

Yay, a sticker!

I agree that buffing early melee units is not the answer as long as ranged units stay the same. I'd still go with CB's - they are cheaper, faster and most importantly crash cities. Which they shouldn't do, so please bring the penalty vs cities back.

Siege units should not be one shot by city defense. Maybe give them cover promo.

I'd rather buff Republic than switch it with CR again. Finisher is bugged, IMO, so it needs to be fixed, not balanced up .

Honor... Everything has been said before. Nothing to add.

Planes - limiting stacks is a great idea, I think. Otherwise the only way to counter them is to make AA guns pretty much invincible and that's not going to happen.

Late game is still too short.

AI tech path can use some variety instead of going through middle of the tree every single time. Although upper and lower branches are clearly inferior, therefore they need to be balanced as well.

I can only dream about total removal of lump sum deals, not hope, but at least nerf them.

Probably a thousand other things I can't think of atm.

Matthew. said:

Likely to balance out their ability to have unlimited stacks. Just for the sake of discussion, are you implying that you wouldn't mind seeing a cap on planes per city if their relative power was also increased? Because as it is now, a stack of 20 planes will clear out anything. They are weak, but you can also attack a single hex a million times.

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Frankly, I don't know how anyone can say bombers are weak. In AI hands - of course, but everything is weak in AI hands. Given a reasonable tech level when controlled by humans bombers pretty much mean game over.

pilot00 said:

@ OP:

I agree with most of your reasoning but not the planes.
I believe in fact that bombers are way too week. Especially vs Cities.
Against a fully fortified (all defensive buildings) a bomber (even a stealth one) with the bonus against cities promo is relatively week (even without anti air into the mix).

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I know above posters have also said this, but this is one of the more bizarre statements I've seen. Ok yes, a single bomber will not take out a city, but with current rules, like others said, you can stack bombers infinitely, and unlimited stacking of Bombers + very easy access to self-healing and double-attack promotion + always get city healing bonus = kill anything. AI doesn't understand how to use Fighters and doesn't understand how to heal planes, so taking out their airforce is pretty much a formality, and from then you just roll over them. So unless you play on a level where AI gets so crazy science and production bonuses that they will get to Flight much before you (Immortal/Diety) game is pretty much over for AI once you reach Flight if you want to go domination.

Seems we're repeating ourselves here.

The Sword/Ranged problem was discussed over in the Fixing the Melee Unit Line at some length. A few ideas I think worth reposting from that thread:

Babri said:

My suggestions

• Increase the strength of resource melee units (swords= +2, longswords= +1).
  
• All melee units (except spears & pikes) take less damage from city attacks (about 10%) when fortified. They do additional 5% damage to cities for each adjacent siege unit. (more effective meatshield in sieges, can actually deal damage when combined with siege units.
  
• Siege units resist ranged attacks by 50% !
  
• Slight reduction in melee strength of archer units.
  
• Ranged attacks get a slight penalty directly proportional to the target unit HP. So ranged units would be better in softening up enemies but you may need some melee units to finish the task more effectively.
  
• Units garrisoned inside cities take considerable damage when the city is attacked by enemies. This can be significantly reduced by constructing defensive buildings. So no more destroying AI stack of doom with the help of just city attacks & 2 crossbows.

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Boris Gudenuf said:

Just throwing some things out there, but here are the historical answers to 'ranged effectiveness':

1. Drop the 'combat strength' of all ranged units. Most of them don't have (historically) anything more effective than large knives as close-in weapons - against spearmen or swordsmen in melee, the result is a quick massacre or archers running for their lives, having thrown away bows, arrows, and anything else portable.

2. Program all melee units so that their reaction to being shot at by ranged is not to sit there and try to heal, but charge the ranged unit.

3. Penalize all ranged units against cities WITH WALLS. Against an open city, they are still effective: against fortifications, only specialized siege weapons do much good, or you resort to a 'storm' with melee units, taking nasty casualties on your way over the walls.

The result should be that ranged units with melee support are still very useful, but ranged unit on their own will get quickly slaughtered without forts or some incredible terrain benefits.

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A couple simple ideas I had that would require minimum coding and make the smallest possible changes to current gameplay:

Seek said:

Changing production cost may be the key here. If melee units cost 50% of current costs and ranged 200%, I bet we will see a dramatic shift towards combined arms. Obviously these values are exaggerated to show my point, but it could be worth looking into. Opportunity cost is the main balancing mechanic in Civ 5, so it would be a natural fix instead of changing mechanics; plus it would also be simple to code.

Another simple and easy solution would be to make the entire ranged line have a range of one like the Gatling and Machine Guns. Added bonus: more realism!

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Seek said:

Making the unit cap an effective part of gameplay would be nice (I often forget it even exists!) - we could have ranged take up more supply than melee as a simple balance mechanism.

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There was also a few pages of discussion in the Improving 1UPT thread, the best idea was this imo:

AlazkanAssassin said:

A "soft" cap to ranged attacks might be better than a "hard" cap at 25%

If the damage done to a unit by a ranged attack were scaled by (the amount of defender health left +x)/(100+x) ,where x is a natural number selected as balance dictates,then your archers would be very effective at initially damaging a unit, and although they could kill it, they would be inefficient at killing it.

A ranged attack on an undamaged unit would still do the same damage it does now, but damaged units would take less damage from ranged attacks.

if x=20 this would result in requiring twice as many ranged attacks to kill a unit, but a set of attacks that would kill it now would still get it under 30 HP remaining; low enough for a single melee attack to finish it off.

Interestingly, this would naturally have no effect on ranged attacks strong enough to kill in a single shot, they would still be fatal.

This would make having melee units in your force a necessity. At the very least, my archer horde would bring a few mounted units to charge in, kill, and run away.

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I agree LC's proposed solutions in the OP (Iron revealed at Bronze Working and Swords and Pikes both at 15 strength) would definitely help matters, and additionally would suggest moving CompBows to Iron Working as well; since they're so essential it will buff IW by quite a lot and balance the early game by pushing back their appearance.

Giving all melee units a bonus to attack is an interesting proposal, but could easily be unbalancing in the opposite direction. Same goes for giving melee free March. Both are certainly worth considering though.

Capitals should have more defense. +25HP & +25% strength or something.
Limiting stacks of planes in cities. Maximum of 3 per type (Fighter, Bomber, Missiles, Nukes) per city, some buildings could give +1 capacity.

kaspergm said:

I know above posters have also said this, but this is one of the more bizarre statements I've seen. Ok yes, a single bomber will not take out a city, but with current rules, like others said, you can stack bombers infinitely, and unlimited stacking of Bombers + very easy access to self-healing and double-attack promotion + always get city healing bonus = kill anything. AI doesn't understand how to use Fighters and doesn't understand how to heal planes, so taking out their airforce is pretty much a formality, and from then you just roll over them. So unless you play on a level where AI gets so crazy science and production bonuses that they will get to Flight much before you (Immortal/Diety) game is pretty much over for AI once you reach Flight if you want to go domination.

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Well my experience from the game comes from multiplayer and/or hotseat games. Vs AI I only play at king difficulty and I rarely face airforce, by that time its a little too late for the AI.

That said the most powerful airforce I have faced was a US special airfleet (7 planes) bombing one of my puppet cities. with all defenses online (buildings no anti air) the Kremlin and riflemen as Garrison. (I was playing as Inca btw) He was bombarding me for 4 turns but the city didn't fall below the green threshold. I don't know if the fact that I was to the info era means anything. We both were puzzled (and to be honest I still am) And then came the nukes. And then there was silence

Matthew. said:

Likely to balance out their ability to have unlimited stacks. Just for the sake of discussion, are you implying that you wouldn't mind seeing a cap on planes per city if their relative power was also increased? Because as it is now, a stack of 20 planes will clear out anything. They are weak, but you can also attack a single hex a million times.

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To be honest I haven't thought of that. But never have I came face to face with such a force. But yeah I agree that a zerg rush type of attack will most likely clean anything. However I don't believe its cost effective to build 20 bombers. You need several cities, resources and a huge chunk of money and time.
Anyhow yes I agree that there should be a cap per city. After all by having an unlimited number removes the OPT of the game. However isnt that the rule they are supposed to brake? Confused need to think more on this

pilot00 said:

That said the most powerful airforce I have faced was a US special airfleet (7 planes) bombing one of my puppet cities. (...) I don't know if the fact that I was to the info era means anything.

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Your city will get an per-era bonus to its defence along with population effect and defence buildings, so yes that will have an effect. I'm still surprised that seven B17's were not able to take it down fairly quickly, but what do I know, I only play vs. AI, and AI doesn't ever manage to build Military Bases, and frequently not even Arsenals, so obviously that does make a difference. And yes, Firaxis have "fixed" the Airplane stacking problem by making Nukes indefencable and destroy all units, but imo. that's not really a solution, but rather introducing another balance breaking feature. I hate Nukes.

kaspergm said:

Your city will get an per-era bonus to its defence along with population effect and defence buildings, so yes that will have an effect. I'm still surprised that seven B17's were not able to take it down fairly quickly, but what do I know, I only play vs. AI, and AI doesn't ever manage to build Military Bases, and frequently not even Arsenals, so obviously that does make a difference. And yes, Firaxis have "fixed" the Airplane stacking problem by making Nukes indefencable and destroy all units, but imo. that's not really a solution, but rather introducing another balance breaking feature. I hate Nukes.

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Ah...So there's the problem. Thanks for clarifying that.
I was suspecting that the era difference would give some bonuses but that was really horrifying. I didn't believe it would carry over to cities in such a magnitude. My friend was like: 'Soooooooooooo....Thats the fabled B17s? Really???Are those guys on the internet serious!?!?'.'

So its good to know its not bugged or all of em as such

Given the clarification I withdraw my statements.

As for the nukes.Well given the fact that it is nukes P) they should be powerful. But I agree there should be some limit on how many you can base in a city. I would go as far as to propose a building (nuke silo?) that would allow a city to slot them in before use, but I fear that may move them to useless part of the scale.

pilot00 said:

As for the nukes.Well given the fact that it is nukes P) they should be powerful. But I agree there should be some limit on how many you can base in a city. I would go as far as to propose a building (nuke silo?) that would allow a city to slot them in before use, but I fear that may move them to useless part of the scale.

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My main gripe with Nukes is that you can't defend against them. It may be realistic, but it's bad for gameplay imo. Things that can't be countered are bad in a strategy game imo. And I know that you can always "nuke them, before they nuke you", but that forces one to always play agressively, which again is bad for a strategy game that is supposed to offer multiple game styles. But I hope the changes in BnW diplomacy will fix this.

Yes, there should be some sort of missile defense system

Montov said:

Capitals should have more defense. +25HP & +25% strength or something.
Limiting stacks of planes in cities. Maximum of 3 per type (Fighter, Bomber, Missiles, Nukes) per city, some buildings could give +1 capacity.

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Capitals already get an inherent defense bonus. Can't remember how much it is exactly though.

kaspergm said:

My main gripe with Nukes is that you can't defend against them. It may be realistic, but it's bad for gameplay imo. Things that can't be countered are bad in a strategy game imo. And I know that you can always "nuke them, before they nuke you", but that forces one to always play agressively, which again is bad for a strategy game that is supposed to offer multiple game styles. But I hope the changes in BnW diplomacy will fix this.

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kingchris20 said:

Yes, there should be some sort of missile defense system

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I seem to remember the SDI from older civs, but in essence it was a glorified nuke shelter. Problem with nukes is that it requires a lot of effort, money and luck to build them in order to completely invalidate them with a defense system.

Perhaps the council will be the answer to this. I seem to remember in CiV 1, that they were ganging you if you had the tech and you didnt share because you were a 'threat'. But the biggest stopping factor to using nukes in older civs was the environmental problems. So yes I might have nuked the US to the stone age but I have 3 more civs to deal with and my capital has sunk dammit!!!

So another suggestion here: Bring pollution/environmental collapse back!

I hope that they nerf Great War Bombers a bit, as right now whenever they come online, you need to stop any wars that you are in until you can defend against them, sometimes my protecting a settler to within Triplane range, or until you research Electronics for carriers.

Also, I'd really like for all units to be viable, ranged units are way too powerful compared to melee, mounted, and siege.

Cities seem a tad too powerful as well, though i'm afraid changing this would make war an absolute breeze, maybe combine it a bit with civ rev mechanics, where you have to defeat the unit inside in exchange for a much weaker garrison attack.

The Pilgrim said:

Frankly, I don't know how anyone can say bombers are weak. In AI hands - of course, but everything is weak in AI hands. Given a reasonable tech level when controlled by humans bombers pretty much mean game over.

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+1

It is almost trivial to take AI cities even on deity if they don't have oil/don't build planes. It is so much easier to attack a city with ten bombers than it is to get ten other units into place.