EMM balance discussion

Tholal · Mar 19, 2014

Blakmane said:
If I've learnt anything from this it is that I should probably be more stubborn, not less.

Yes. I would suggest that rather than waiting for a suggested change to be struck down by several people, you go the opposite route and only make suggested changes if multiple people support it and it seems to make sense.

And I agree that the Elves dont need any sort of nerf. I don't really think that Fawns do either, myself (though some of the issues may arise from the fact that EiTB reduced the cost of Fawns significantly)

BobCW · Mar 19, 2014

I haven't been following this Mod-mod-mod-mod much (as in, at all- I only happened by to see if Qg had updated his game diary for an Adventure I once ran), so I can't comment on your motivations or the history of the EMM project. I do apologize for calling your personal experience into question, I was surprised that some of your claims regarding the power of FoL / the Elven civs didn't correspond well with my own games.

Considering that the responses you have received appear overwhelmingly opposed to the FoL change, abandoning it is the right move. There isn't any active modding discussion going on at RB- Sareln, the designer of EitB, has been busy with RL for a while & ceased mod development about a year ago. V9 (with the Noctis patch) is generally seen as perfectly suitable for MP games in its current state regardless, with the vast majority of glaring issues in FFH MP having been resolved.

As an aside, it interesting that you say volanna/rhoanna are the stronger leaders for those civs. I'm not disagreeing at all (no experience with Volanna and our Hippus player never goes anyone BUT Rhoanna) but it is interesting that, over at RB at least, there are no raiders trait leaders who are considered optimal picks for any race. If I remember, you guys had a similar experience to us: good road management mostly prevented abuse of commando.

The EitB version of Volanna is def. the strongest Svart leader at the moment. Fawns (who require no resources or prereq buildings) hitting at strength 5 + CI (+ shock with Apprenticeship exp) for only 40 hammers a pop are very difficult for most opponents to deal with. I never said that Rhoanna is necessarily better than Tasunke, though. She's able to handle a greater array of maps however (given a typical 5-player PBEM, anything much different from a small-sized pangea is going to leave him worse off) and doesn't force the player into staking their game on a series of Go-Big-or-Go-Home mounted rushes, which has an obvious appeal.

There are actually a couple Raiders leaders in EitB who see more play than their fellow Civ mates. Mahala (or however you spell her name) is much more popular than Charadon (for the same reason people usually pick Rhoanna over Tasunke), and Decius appears a bit more often than Flauros (and much more frequently than Alexis). I personally prefer Amelancheir over the other two Ljo leaders, but I'm strange. While cutting down on road spam neuters Raiders to some extent, the trait still has significant advantages. You force your opponents to have a skeletal road network, can make thousands of gold through pillaging and conquest, and even sparse road systems will still speed you on to your next target. Plus there's a bonus first strike chance on most of your units :lol:

Qgqqqqq · Mar 19, 2014

What Bob said, basically.

I would actually support the question about what MP enviroment you come from, but from a different point of view - RB in general favors longer, slow-paced games played by PBEM or PB, but from what I've seen of Civfanatics it seems most of you play quick, gamespy-esque games, which are two totally different sorts of gameplay. For example, I would say at RB Rhoanna >> Tasunke, but in a fast-paced online game, rushing traits in general and Raiders in paticular are significantly boosted.

I wouldn't say Fawns need a nerf. They cost significantly more tech then hunters and the religion, you want them to be superior (and they also can't carry hawks and miss out on +50% versus animals), or at least useful for different purposes. I certainly wouldn't give much credit to a fawn rush being particularly powerful, as it requires a lot of beakers and the much-cheaper bronze warrior should be able to stop them in their tracks.

The only reason I made the change in the first place was because people were using exactly the same argument on me you are now making. I was literally the only person in the EMM main thread saying it wasn't necessary. I'm sure you can understand how frustrating your reply is given this.

Sorry, some of the comments in that thread infuriated me enough that I didn't want to take part.

(as in, at all- I only happened by to see if Qg had updated his game diary for an Adventure I once ran)

Yeah, about that...I'm actually half-way through writing it up, but a lot of work has been pausing me there. I haven't let myself play ahead, however, so you will see it happen eventually.

EMM is basically EitB updated to Tholal's latest AI, and then a bunch (like a lot) of flavor/gameplay changes added. I would say EitB is the better MP mod, but of course there's no development happening.

BobCW · Mar 20, 2014

I wouldn't say Fawns need a nerf. They cost significantly more tech then hunters and the religion, you want them to be superior (and they also can't carry hawks and miss out on +50% versus animals), or at least useful for different purposes. I certainly wouldn't give much credit to a fawn rush being particularly powerful, as it requires a lot of beakers and the much-cheaper bronze warrior should be able to stop them in their tracks.

I totally agree about the Fawns in general not needing any changes. It's just that, in Vollana's hands, they're murder machines which will mulch anything weaker than HA in the field & can defeat even copper warriors fortified in cities thanks to lacking the city attack malus of Hunters. The free C1 pushes them from "very good, but hardly unstoppable" in the hands of the other two Svart leaders to "hits like a metal-less Champ for half the cost and double the moves, with no counter promotions". Of course non-Svart Fawns aren't anything special at all, Aggressive or not. Satyr are totally kickass, but you have to work to get them so they're not an issue.

from what I've seen of Civfanatics it seems most of you play quick, gamespy-esque games, which are two totally different sorts of gameplay.

Hah, I never even considered that they might not be playing PBEM / PB games, FFH being so notoriously buggy with live play. I would think the FoL would be even less powerful in Gamespy than a PBEM or PB environment. Unless they're playing on large / huge maps, speed & mobility are all that matters when double-moves are in play. Kurios and Hippus all the way.

Apologies OP for wavering off-topic; at least the Fawns discussion might be of some use :mischief:

Blakmane · Mar 20, 2014

BobCW said:
I do apologize for calling your personal experience into question, I was surprised that some of your claims regarding the power of FoL / the Elven civs didn't correspond well with my own games.

That's fine, thanks for the apology. As I said before, I made the decision to try the nerf due to an overwhelming response in the EMM thread. It hasn't worked, so I'll revert it, no harm done. I just wish the people who had argued so vehemently in the EMM thread would actually add something to this discussion as well. It's frustrating to be stuck between two different camps of people when you try to be accomodating.

BobCW said:
V9 (with the Noctis patch) is generally seen as perfectly suitable for MP games in its current state regardless, with the vast majority of glaring issues in FFH MP having been resolved.

Qgqqqqq said:
EMM is basically EitB updated to Tholal's latest AI, and then a bunch (like a lot) of flavor/gameplay changes added. I would say EitB is the better MP mod, but of course there's no development happening.

Yeah, we went with EMM over EitB because we wanted MNAI fixes (OOS especially) plus the amazing balance changes in EitB. Unfortunately EitB doesn't bugfix OOS because you guys play over PBEM where it doesn't matter. The game in its base state from EitB is perfectly playable in MP I agree, but my gaming group wanted some more tweaks to less glaring issues such as melee/archer line parity and the monobuild nature of aristofarms. Also, our environment is very different to RB as QG points out: we play real time, simul turns games which lends to very different strategies and relative unit strengths.

I'm going to go back to making changes based on my group's metagame I think, rather than trying to accomodate other groups who may be using the patch (although if they find it useful, more power to them). That way seemed to work out better. The advantage of quick, real-time games is that we can blast them out relatively quickly, which gives us a lot of testing power when it comes to small changes.

BobCW said:
There are actually a couple Raiders leaders in EitB who see more play than their fellow Civ mates.

I forgot about Mahala (she's one of my go-to picks, incidentally!), but I guess she kind of proves the point: Raiders is not enough to drag low tier civs up to the top on its own, which probably suggests it is fine. Don't get me wrong: i'm not saying raiders is a bad trait. It's probably one of the better or even the best. I think we are agreeing that it is good but not the 'godlike trait of instawin' it is sometimes argued to be on this forum.

BobCW said:
The EitB version of Volanna is def. the strongest Svart leader at the moment. Fawns (who require no resources or prereq buildings) hitting at strength 5 + CI (+ shock with Apprenticeship exp) for only 40 hammers a pop are very difficult for most opponents to deal with

Qgqqqqq said:
I wouldn't say Fawns need a nerf.

Yeah, I followed one of the RB games with svarts in particular, was an interesting read. That game plus our own 1v1 tests where why I was inclined to make the fawn changes for this patch.

There's a 250 beaker difference, but you pick up GK on the way for a boost, so you're probably ~10 turns behind on quick speed (plus you're halfway to aristofarms or cottages). You have to factor in the 100 hammer training yards too (another 3-4 turns in your capital), so in the end the timings aren't too disparate.

That said, the nerf simply stops them being a city buster and does nothing to prevent their field dominance, which is good IMO. I would be open to reducing it to -25%, but I want some proof that they are no longer cost effective in MP first. This one did have some solid MP testing behind it after all.

Qgqqqqq said:
Sorry, some of the comments in that thread infuriated me enough that I didn't want to take part.

Don't worry about it. As you can probably tell, I've still got enough FFH fever to reply to everything. Probably a mistake...

scutarii · Mar 20, 2014

Thing are going pretty well for nerfed ljofo AI in my game now.

Jojo_Fr · Jul 18, 2014

Hello.

I would like to report few problems, problems of unbalanced features/spells we encounter in our recents multiplayer games. These problems may be redondants with past suggestions.

Off course, feel free to do or don't do what you want, I just want to give our experience.

1. The overpowering of immunity to death or devil damages

- There are units who are immunised to source of damages. It may be logical but it nerfs totally units which are founded on this damage source. For exemple, Fantoms are pretty weak but can become strong if you got some death mana node.

But versus immunised, as Eidolons, or Any demons, they became very weak, useless in fact.

Proposition : Reduce immunity to Death/Impis damages from 100 % to 50 %. It is logical, balanced thing. I dont see why a demons would be immunised to a very strong empored undead as the spectres.

2. The overpowering of the Blinding Light spell

- Confronted to this situation where the Ennemy has few very strong demons in defense, who canceled my fantoms strategy (I played Sheaims and the AC was at 100), I needed to create special counter unit so I go for the Cannons.

- But when I came to his city with 20 canons and a big army, he used several Rathas with Blinding Light and from here he succed to totally block me. My 50th units were stuck here each turn, the only things which I could done was to invoque spectres for attack, but they were useless versus his demons defenders...

Proposition : Mass SPells have always been a unabalance factor, but this spell is largely too strong. First you can have it just by building units (you don't need upgrame an adept, for exemple), and two it affect every unit in all stack and all directions.

I propose you can only send one type of mass spells per turn on an ennemy stack (if it is technically possible).

If not, I propose blinding light can only 3 units by each spell used (witch is still important).

Another solution should be to be able to developp the opportunity of spell resistance because now, there is nothing versus that except dispell but Blinding Light make unpossible any spellcasting....

3. The assassins

- Do you plan to create units who protect vs them ? Now an ennemy who has assassin can kill any adept/mages/ritualistes and ruin totally your attack.

Defense in FFH2 is largely too easy compared to attack. You can use mass spells before him, invocations, sieges, and with assassin, any attack become impossible (vs an intelligent ennemy, from the mid game).

So the game tend to become very defensive and going from a stupid Tower Mastery competition, not conquest victory.

Qgqqqqq · Jul 18, 2014

I don't have time for anything more but...

Defense in FFH2 is largely too easy compared to attack. You can use mass spells before him, invocations, sieges, and with assassin, any attack become impossible (vs an intelligent ennemy, from the mid game).

So the game tend to become very defensive and going from a stupid Tower Mastery competition, not conquest victory.

I'm sorry, but I found that hilarious. I'll let someone else explain why.

Tasunke · Jul 19, 2014

BobCW said:
I totally agree about the Fawns in general not needing any changes. It's just that, in Vollana's hands, they're murder machines which will mulch anything weaker than HA in the field & can defeat even copper warriors fortified in cities thanks to lacking the city attack malus of Hunters. The free C1 pushes them from "very good, but hardly unstoppable" in the hands of the other two Svart leaders to "hits like a metal-less Champ for half the cost and double the moves, with no counter promotions". Of course non-Svart Fawns aren't anything special at all, Aggressive or not. Satyr are totally kickass, but you have to work to get them so they're not an issue.

Hah, I never even considered that they might not be playing PBEM / PB games, FFH being so notoriously buggy with live play. I would think the FoL would be even less powerful in Gamespy than a PBEM or PB environment. Unless they're playing on large / huge maps, speed & mobility are all that matters when double-moves are in play. Kurios and Hippus all the way.

Apologies OP for wavering off-topic; at least the Fawns discussion might be of some use

Agg + sinister on Fawns is frightening, not gonna lie

Also, Fawns don't need a building, just the religion presence. But ... Fawns by themselves aren't all that bad, its when combined with Svartalfar's Sinister trait .... on this game where +1 strength can mean a 25% increase or more. Perhaps sinister should be switched to +20% str rather than +1 attack?

-----------------

A few trait ideas I've been throwing about ...

Aggressive ... City Raider 1 (all units including siege, but not animal or beast)

Fierce .... Combat 1 (all units including animal and beast, but not siege)

Defensive ... 'Homeland' ... but its +30% local strength, rather than +10% local and +10% withdrawal

Strategic ... Drill 1 +2 (melee, archer, mounted, recon) +100% general emergence

Raider ... Mobility 1, Flanking 1 (all unit types including Naval!), +100% gold from pillaging

Determined .... +50% GPP, +25% general emergence + 'Ambition' promotion (+50% exp) ... (Melee, Mounted, Archer, Recon, Disciple, Arcane)

Spoiler :

---> And raider also allows a building which can create 'raider cavalry' ... which are 4 str, 3 move, 50% withdrawal, commando, and -50% city attack .... so they have absolutely no hope of anything other than harassment, but they are REALLY good at harassment. (like what the theme was meant for imho) .... and the base boost of mob1 + flanking1 is to still have some military advantage, just not as large as the HUGE advantage it did have.

the new 'Tasunke' for the Hippus .... Raider/ Strategic

new Alexis of Calabim .... Fierce/ Determined

Decius = Organized/ Strategic

Flauros = ~~Philosophical/ Imperialistic~~ No, he should remain Phi/Org

Arcturus Thorne .... Aggressive/ Industrious (unchanged, except that the trait's effect is different now of course)

Basium = Fierce/ Raider

Amelanchier = Defensive/ Raider

Sheelba = Fierce/ Organized

Volanna = Determined/ Raider

Faeryl Viconia = Arcane/ Strategic

Captain Uldanor = Creative/ Strategic

Captain Ostanes = Aggressive/ Strategic

Cheron = Defensive/ Agrarian/ Strategic

Charadom = Fierce/ Charismatic/ Barbarian

Baron Duin Halfmorn = Aggressive/ Fierce/ Slaver

Gosea = Philosophical/ Magical Resistant

Calavente · Jul 21, 2014

JoJo_Fr ...
I'll let it be, just like Qgqqqqqq...
Your last complain on "unbalanced" was all about having so much attack-paths that were unbalanced. (raiders/commando 3-4-5 mvt units / ghosts ....etc).

Your opponent just found how to counter your hyper specialized army, and outsmarted you... and you say it is OP ? no, you were only outsmarted.

why do you have spectres (fantomes) ? due to the OPness of death mana ... indeed, Spectres are SO good that they could be totally OP. (and are often thought so)... what limit their OPness is that other spectres, skelletons, demons and a few promotions are immune to it.
(and that's good).
If you have spectres, you could as easily have prepared a few mages with maelstrom (tempête?) or fire-balls...

vs Empy : you did not see that he had empyrian (needed for rathas) ?
you could have anticipated and upgraded a few units to magic resistance... or get soldier of kilmorph (being dwarves, they are somehow magic immune.)
you could get mages with charm/ domination so that their unit cannot cast the blind spell, or just have a few mages with mobility I/commando and dispell (3 promotions: free: metamagic, mobility (fire1, combat1, spell extension1), upgrade to mage, free metamagic2, fire 2) ; or only mobility and commando (iirc dispel works for nearby units, not only on same tile.)
split you stack in 3:
front attacked (get blinded) - void tile - (void tile?) stack 2 (3-4 mobile defender (mobility 1 archer/LB or royal guards) + mage with dispell) - void tile void tile (defenders mobiltiy mage with dispell)
your first stack is blinded : not pb : advance your first "debuster stack" in contact and remove the blind ... advance all units, move horses/chariots around to kill rathas and/or pillage roads.
they blind simultaneously your main stack and your debuster stack ?
np : second debuster stack: unblind first debuster stack --> first debuster stack advances and un-blind main stack : advance main stack.

indeed, you were outsmarted : he blocked your main source of attack (spectres), and you responded with only one action to counter him (catapults), but you forgot that he also has time to react.

then I'll say something:
in FFH it is much harder to defend than to attack.
Indeed, maelstrom / fireballs / rust / Ring of Fire attack the whole stack, easily kill the hard-to-obtain culture defense...
mages with fireballs and mobility1 spell extension 1 have a 5tile range attack ! way out of counter-attack for most units.

anyway, as it is harder to defend, it is nice to see that someone repelled your Stack of Doom attacks using smarts: it means the game mechanics for defense are not as weak as usually thought.

against assassin : you have spectres so you have death 2 ?? : build a massive stack of skeletons... they have 3 str... and lower combat % than mages... they will (normally) be targeted before mages) (normally) or get earth 2 : +2defensive str : you are sure that the skellies will be targeted.

Jojo_Fr · Jul 23, 2014

- In fact, I don't think anything in this game is unbalanced. All is ok, let's be conservative. The problem is not in the game, it is in me. My mind is unbalanced and it is not a technical problem but a psychological problem if I well understand you. :crazyeye:

- To me the things about FFH2 are clears :

- Any strategy game are designed then tested then patched. Starcraft 2 for exemple, has strongly been tested then patched to give a more balanced multiplayer. Even now, the game is still (lightly but still) patched about balance things.

FFH2 has not been tested and patched from a competitive MP experience. Modders of FFH2 have make an excellent work about solving but and reducing severals unbalanced things, but not much because they prefered to don't alter too much the mechanism.

- On my side, as I am not able to mod, I put here and in another forum, the feeedback I have because I would like one day someone could use this feedback to go further in a multiplayer patch. Maybe no one will every do it, but it is not important (it is just a game off course).

Calavente said:
If you have spectres, you could as easily have prepared a few mages with maelstrom (tempête?) or fire-balls...

No, because I used the fire spell of priest of veil, then tryed using 10 or more fantoms to kill his Eidolon but I could not because (I guess) Eidolon could heal himself with cannibalism, when he was hurted.

About fireballs and things like that, it could have works so at the beginnning I was outsmarted and did not used some spells. But after that I changed the strategy, I am not as an A.I ^^

Then I maked cannons, and used much more troops, as minotors, rifleman mostly. And it worked to capture this city, with some of his units (including Eidolon vampires and Calabims).

But because I attacked before a got the time to use Blinding Light, I got luch he did not use his few ratha to do it ! If he had the time (at the beginning of the turn) to use them, 80 % of my units would be unaible to move.

In conclusion, I am totally sure of the goodness of my proposition to down the death immunity to 50 % from 100 %. Maybe it can make fantoms too strong. But a modder could try that, and players could test it and give their opinion.

For now, this fantoms history is very marginal problem compared to others big problems as FoL super OP, calabim manor OP etc.

vs Empy : you did not see that he had empyrian (needed for rathas) ?
you could have anticipated and upgraded a few units to magic resistance... or get soldier of kilmorph (being dwarves, they are somehow magic immune.)

No i could not because it need a high level and vs one human (when all AI are killed) you cannot make free AI so you can just your units. Only mages could have free XP but they are not good to attack (and it is still very hard to waiting for obtainin this small effect of magic resistance).

And about dwarves I don't think soliders of Kilmorph maybe have work : first they are weak unit, two MR is not so much strong, and 3 a game where you need to change your religion just to be able to move your stack of units is a stupid game.

It is clear the problem is not here, and that others solution should be bringed.

you could get mages with charm/ domination so that their unit cannot cast the blind spell, or just have a few mages with mobility I/commando and dispell (3 promotions: free: metamagic, mobility (fire1, combat1, spell extension1), upgrade to mage, free metamagic2, fire 2) ; or only mobility and commando (iirc dispel works for nearby units, not only on same tile.)

Dispell don't dispell the blindness. Dispell only remove the negative debuff spell but blindness is not a spell but a special effect. Blindness can only be dispelled by Life III priest spell (and at this game I did not know this spell could cure blidness, neither have the level of tech).

But even if the archmage can do the job, it is obivously not normal that you need to wait archmage to defend vs few small early units (ratha) who paralyse your entire army (I had two main stack, so the two stack). I think it is clear no ?

against assassin : you have spectres so you have death 2 ?? : build a massive stack of skeletons... they have 3 str... and lower combat % than mages... they will (normally) be targeted before mages) (normally) or get earth 2 : +2defensive str : you are sure that the skellies will be targeted.

I have tryed this with squeletons. I have too tryed with slaves because I remember assassin could aim the poor slaves units. ^^ But no, they aimed the moebius or adept. Maybe it was because the squeletons had good strengh (Stigmata + Necromantic tower).

About stone skin it is a good idea, I did not thinked about that maybe it would have work.

But again, so it means what, that any invading army need to have mage (hard to obtain) then death 1, then stone 2 to protect vs assassin ? It is not serious, it is obvious that guardman protmotion should be accessible more easily because assassin are a huge balance problem.

To finish, when you play MP and you see that everybody tend to always play the same civs, I dont think it is because I am irrationnal and try to defend my favorites civs, the only conclusion to have, even if you don't know the game at all, it is : the multiplayer is very unabalanced.

Calavente · Jul 23, 2014

I won't answer all (I think) but at least this

Jojo_Fr said:
but I could not because (I guess) Eidolon could heal himself with cannibalism, when he was hurted.

cannibalism does not work when defeating non-living units. If you couldn't defeat the Eidolon, it's because spectre do only 3str vs eidolon (immune to unholy damage) and 3attack vs 9defensive (or 10?)+promotions + more than 25%) has no chances of doing anything.
And your spectres being to do something would have been the strange thing.

assassins are weak units...
their only purpose are to counter mage-heavy armies.
by rendering guardsman easy to get, you would counter a whole unit type too easily and render a mage-heavy army invincible.

and if blind is not dispellable, maybe it can be healed ? (high-priests ?/druids)

anyway, it's been known for a long time hat blind has its faults... many things have been proposed (that blind gives way to an increased resistance to blind on the following turn...etc, or that it could be dispelled, or that it targets a limited number of units.... and all modmod have tried different things.)
however, it cannot be suppressed: is the counter to .... "raider mounted army" !! yeah !! one of your pet peeves..

lfgr · Jul 23, 2014

Quoted from the EMM thread:

Jojo_Fr said:
If someone think I can learn quickly how to mod FFH2, I'll do it myself because I am the only motivated person to do it it seems.

I think most of your suggestions are easy to mod in. A quick guide on how to edit units and promotions in the XML in spoilers:

Spoiler :

Tasunke · Jul 23, 2014

lfgr gives good modding advice

--------------------------

Jojo said:
"But because I attacked before a got the time to use Blinding Light, I got luch he did not use his few ratha to do it ! If he had the time (at the beginning of the turn) to use them, 80 % of my units would be unaible to move.

In conclusion, I am totally sure of the goodness of my proposition to down the death immunity to 50 % from 100 %. Maybe it can make fantoms too strong. But a modder could try that, and players could test it and give their opinion."

I do not find the combination of these statements to be logically sound. I could see maybe modding blinding light ... but I cannot see the option to reduce death resistance as being reasonable ... unless there are other forms of death resistance.

Further more, I do not see a connection between Spectre Death damage and Blinding Light. (at least not towards reducing death resistance, as rare as it is)

Terkhen · Jul 24, 2014

WRT blinding light:

https://bitbucket.org/Terkhen/extramodmod/issue/96/blinding-light

ExtraModMod Features said:
Blinding Light only lasts for one turn, and it is easier to resist.

I remember someone (maybe Gekko, forgive my poor memory) suggesting some solution for Blinding Light which I liked more than the current option, but which I chose to not implement because of how complicated it was. That discussion is somewhere in the main EMM thread.

Tasunke's post about traits, along with the "Most powerful trait" thread at the strategy subforum made me think about EMM leaders and traits. Although I don't want to tackle huge changes to either leaders or traits, lately I've been noticing that in our games we never pick up some leaders, such as Decius. As you may know, I've been striving for making all options viable in EMM, and a key part of that is leaders. For 0.5.0 I'll probably juggle leader traits around a bit, and maybe tweak a trait or two.

0.5.0 will also include a game option for disallowing certain "leader categories", which would allow to enable or disable having vanilla leaders, minor leaders (which are most of the ones in EMM currently) or "extra" leaders (currently only Cheron). This opens the door for creating additional leaders with different trait combinations which would allow to play new strategies with existing civilizations, but also allowing players who do not want them to disable them. I'm not saying that I would create a ton of new leaders, but maybe a few additions which fulfill certain specific roles for their civs would make the game more fun.

Because of these reasons, I would like to know if do you think that any of the following points is true, and if that's the case, what could be done to improve the current situation.

Some leaders may not be worthy of being picked in comparison with other leaders (either when considering all leaders or just those from the same civilization).
Traits are not meant to be 100% balanced to each other, but certain traits may be problematic for some reason.
Some civilizations may be missing a leader with a new trait combination in order to allow a certain way of playing which could be interesting for that civilization.

[to_xp]Gekko · Jul 24, 2014

actually you did include my suggestion for blinding light, it uses an expiring promotion instead of the old method

I agree with Jojo that dispel might be more fitting to remove it than Heal.

Also you added a higher chance to resist blinding light, so it's already much nerfed compared to vanilla.

scutarii · Jul 24, 2014

Some leaders may not be worthy of being picked in comparison with other leaders (either when considering all leaders or just those from the same civilization).

For instance, due to specific building and units - spiritual leader for elohim beats fellow leaders, regardless of their traits.

Solution: make spiritual to civilization trait and tolerant as leader trait.

I'd give to one of sheaim leaders industrious trait, to Gosea, instead of slaver, the rest of leaders suit for their roles.

Terkhen · Jul 25, 2014

scutarii said:
For instance, due to specific building and units - spiritual leader for elohim beats fellow leaders, regardless of their traits.

Solution: make spiritual to civilization trait and tolerant as leader trait.

This proposal has popped up a lot over the years, but that explanation managed to convince me. What trait should Einion get instead of Spiritual?

scutarii said:
I'd give to one of sheaim leaders industrious trait, to Gosea, instead of slaver, the rest of leaders suit for their roles.

That would make her identical to Sandalphon. Also, why Industrious?

scutarii · Jul 25, 2014

This proposal has popped up a lot over the years, but that explanation managed to convince me. What trait should Einion get instead of Spiritual?

definitely tolerant and.... hmm...philosophical?

That would make her identical to Sandalphon. Also, why Industrious?

for wonders like...catacomb librarius ( free mage guilds), tower of necromancy....

and lets replace philosophical with...um...agrarian? For whipping cheaper granary and smokehouse....I'd buff agrarian trait with "stores 10% after growth"

I'd give to Kurio leader Cheron tolerant trait instead of agrarian ( not much usage for cottage economy anyway...) - instead of building big cities first and spam settlements later....conquer for instance hippus city....agression suits for Cheron theme anyway...

Calabim - organized trait rules....the rest is mostly filler... therefore is no point to make for calabim non -organized leaders...

Tasunke · Jul 27, 2014

Terkhen said:
WRT blinding light:

https://bitbucket.org/Terkhen/extramodmod/issue/96/blinding-light

I remember someone (maybe Gekko, forgive my poor memory) suggesting some solution for Blinding Light which I liked more than the current option, but which I chose to not implement because of how complicated it was. That discussion is somewhere in the main EMM thread.

Tasunke's post about traits, along with the "Most powerful trait" thread at the strategy subforum made me think about EMM leaders and traits. Although I don't want to tackle huge changes to either leaders or traits, lately I've been noticing that in our games we never pick up some leaders, such as Decius. As you may know, I've been striving for making all options viable in EMM, and a key part of that is leaders. For 0.5.0 I'll probably juggle leader traits around a bit, and maybe tweak a trait or two.

0.5.0 will also include a game option for disallowing certain "leader categories", which would allow to enable or disable having vanilla leaders, minor leaders (which are most of the ones in EMM currently) or "extra" leaders (currently only Cheron). This opens the door for creating additional leaders with different trait combinations which would allow to play new strategies with existing civilizations, but also allowing players who do not want them to disable them. I'm not saying that I would create a ton of new leaders, but maybe a few additions which fulfill certain specific roles for their civs would make the game more fun.

Because of these reasons, I would like to know if do you think that any of the following points is true, and if that's the case, what could be done to improve the current situation.

Some leaders may not be worthy of being picked in comparison with other leaders (either when considering all leaders or just those from the same civilization).

Traits are not meant to be 100% balanced to each other, but certain traits may be problematic for some reason.

Some civilizations may be missing a leader with a new trait combination in order to allow a certain way of playing which could be interesting for that civilization.

Trait Variety can often be good, especially if it gives different 'real' options.

I recently played a game as Malchavik of the Sheaim, and never fully appreciated the Sage trait until then. Rly a good leader for my play style last game.

But anyways, I'd like to say that as always suggestions are open to change ...... I like what you ended up doing with the civics I added, for instance, as well as adding +1 trade routes to the City States civic. I may still try to add something in the Government Category, but it will no longer be exclusively Bannor.

Another change of mine I miss is the equal water-food. Lanun can have their coves, but in a food heavy game like FFH2 there rly shouldn't even be any water tiles STARTING with 1 food imho. Make water something worth fighting over, and this isn't a flavor thing this is a balance thing. It just is NOT right that over at Realms Beyond, the people in the Play By Emails have this rule about maps, that water always has to be super limited because lanun can just take off with them.

Lanun should be the best at sea, and they should be the only one with coves ... BUT! the global base-yield should not be modified! Water is much too important ... and since FFH2 is fairly food heavy in general, I would rather that base water yields were increased by 1 food. (via terrain file)
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On my trait suggestions only 1 or 2 things can I be certain of ....

There will be a Strategic Trait

Decius WILL be Strategic + "Something" + Adaptive

and that Raider trait should add Mobility1 + Flanking1 (instead of commando)

now, largely for my own amusement, but also because I like it, I will be adding 'Adaptive' to several leaders. And I think that 'Tasunke' will be among the lucky few. And I'm certain that Decius will be.

Tyra Kiri, who is currently Arcane/Sage ... I think that is a waste of the sage trait tbh ..... not that sage isn't a good trait, which I can see in Malchavik, but that Amurite aren't really the civ for it, and currently BOTH of their primaries have arcane?? whats up with that? Also now ALL have arcane? :lol:

:Ahem: ... well anyways, I can see having at least one of arcane or summoner for each leader b/c amurites ARE supposed to be the best wizards ..... ALTHOUGH it is well known that Valledia the Even is not very magical in her own right.

Therefore I propose this ... for all three leaders.

Valledia the Even: Org/Arc/Ing ... as currently best leader, she remains unchanged

Dain Caswallan: Phi/Arc/AM ... gains 'Arcane Mastery' which gives Ambition, Focus, and Combat-1 promos to arcane units.

Tyra Kiri: Def/Sum/Law ... Law affinity means all arcane start with Law 1 promotion

---------------

Now for Dain, Ambition means that arcane units can get more exp via direct combat, and Focus means that arcane units (and only arcane units) get half-upgrade-cost, similar to valledia's ingenuity, but un-usable with firebows. And then for Tyra Kiri .... well, having double lasting Hosts of Einherjar, considered one of the best summons in the game by Realms Beyond, is certainly a good defensive combo, especially when combined with the all-global defender trait. (Also im changing defender to +30% strength in borders, to have it more relevant when compared to aggressive) And besides, the +10% withdrawal from the promo was having unintended consequences.
----------------

In summary I can tell you that I have started to put a lot of thought into this .... and I will be careful to not post anything further containing too much detail until it plays out, either in my mind's eye, or in an actual MP test.

-----------------------

On blinding light, I will test again in game, because I wasn't the victim but the caster, but looking at the pedia it seems like you have a rather excellent fix for blinding light already in the game. And it isn't that it lasts one turn, but that it applies the 'blinded' promotion that disables movement. And it has a 50% wear off rate. Seems good to me, assuming that its currently in effect, which looking at the code I see no reason to disbelieve. Entangle, however, still needs to be fixed. Something I believe that I can do. There are a few things I'd like to add, like 'shade' for instance ... but the mere fact that 'Heal' already removes blinding light is spectacular. Especially since only 5 units at a time can use this spell, excepting Grigori of course, meaning 4 high priests + a hero.

Now, onto your much more disturbing analysis that no one tends to pick the Raider leader Decius. First of all, which Civilization are you talking about? Because I've come to accept some people's skepticism of the pervasive commando promotion, however if some people are hesistant to choose this leader on the merits of the commando promotion, then perhaps I should leave raider as is .... and just argue for it to still be included in the game. It is a tough line to walk, being as I've already given it due consideration for what I would want a commando bonus to be replaced with .... and I had concluded on mob1 + flanking1 on ALL unit categories. Naval,animal,beast,siege,melee, and all the usual suspects. For now Decius and Hannah retain the trait.

While playing competitively with Jojo, I can see how someone used to competitive play can become annoyed by this, but at the same time I have played against it before. The main time when I actually remember playing against it to where I actually thought about it though was on Realms Beyond .... on a particular PBEM where Yellow was playing the Hippus ... and I was stressed and obsessed about his Raider trait all the way up until he died by the Svartalfar. Perhaps he would not have taken advantage of it .... but if he had gotten lucky, or even not so lucky, it could have been used to devastating effect. Raiders trait is best for ppl that like to take risks, and u dont even have to take very big risks since typically most cities wont be as heavily defended as the front. And the fact that commando actually has us rely on enemy roads is something that I can only in good conscience see enemy units doing. I am working on a parallel development path to let Hippus approach this level of maneuverability without using roads, but it won't be nearly as universal and it won't rely on enemy roads, that is for sure. So while for now I think I will continue with my approach of changing and replacing the raider trait, I would ask you to consider what it is about Decius, Tasunke, Hannah, etc that keeps you from selecting the Raider trait, or what it is that keeps you from taking full advantage of the raider trait.

-Tasunke

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