The Luchiurp world spell is not overpowerd

Someones been on about how casting the Hammer on turn one is massivly overpowerfull. I would like to say that he thinks this becasue the AI is bad, not becasue the spell is overly good. Ive played a few games as Luchiurp now, and get much MUCH greater effects from casting it at turn 100 normal speed when I have about 5 cities than on turn 1 with one.
1 Cast, by turn 100 300GPP, by turn 200 600GPP,
5 Casts, by turn 100 0GPP, by turn 200 1500GPP.
Of course this includes moving all hammers to the capital, but even by turn 200 the wait pays off over double what the impatient way does. Over the course of the game the wait pays off massively.
He said something about early wonders, but FFH early wonders are more like BTS's Stonehenge, nice but not vital. By the time you can build good wonders its past turn 100 and I have GE's anyway, and have enough capital hammers that I wouldnt rush a wonder.

Its a powerfull mechanic by BTS standards, by its no greater than say, Elven improved forrests or Sidar Shades and in many ways its weaker than Lanuan Pirate Ports.

If you win easily agains the computer, its probably because you win easily against the computer, play a higher level or enjoy the win. Luchiurp world spell is among the most balanced in the game.

well to be fair to the guy saying that luirchip spell was overppowered :
-he stated that he plays with advanced start !!
-thus : he begins with 5 small cities and 1 big;
he then gets 6 hammers on turn 1 and moves them to the capital.

but IMO you are right.

Yea, the poster being referred to stated that it was overpowered only with Advanced Start, which I could sorta see. I don't think that's a big deal.

He was playing with advanced start? I read about 3 of his threads and missed it. I normally dont complain about people's oppinions but he put it in the bug thread...
Oddly enough playing with him playing with advanced start is what I would do with the spell, I'd just not advanced start. It's a very nice spell, but most (probably all, but I havent played them all) civs have some attributes that are at least that nice.

gonna add 2cp on this.

i play on quick speed with no advanced start and i pop the hammer every time on turn 1. why?

1- extra 3 hammers right off the go on turn 1 means i get my mud golem that much faster.
2- i tend to rush sailing as the luichirp (yes its unconventional,but you did give em a free engineer.) .my reasoning for this is that i tend to get access to build the great lighthouse around the time i get my first great engineer. the lighthouse is EXPENSIVE in terms of hammers for when you get it. and the extra trade i gain from this makes up for ALOT.

basically with increased trade and those bonus 2 hammers every turn i can get 3-5 cities with fireball throwing wood golems fairly quick (around turns 100-120).

please try it and see what you think....

what i feel would balance the luichirp atm ...

1- put a req on the hammer spell , say with the tech that gets wood golems and barny
2- PLEASE for the love of god move the blasting workshop to sorcery.it being at elementalism is just a tad to early.


gl and have fun

It's no prob unless you start with multiple cities (not sure about fireball wood golems, never tried that... thanks for the tip).

With multiple city start, it's completely rediculas.

If you use a philo leader, it gets downright nuts. Just bulb to engineering, build cross + clocks, and take every wonder along the way.

Of course, we don't use Luch in advanced start anymore.

Playciv2948 might have put it in the bug thread because, even if the cost of cities is "fixed"*, it will remain unusable in advanced starts with sufficient points to buy 3+ cities. Prob not appropriate for the bug thread anyway. He's a forum n00b

We played around with some high-point advanced starts, and he did it with 10 cities against me once

* I like cities being cheap. I find that more physical infratructure than tech makes for interesting and diverse advanced start strats that are forced to adapt to terrain.

I think there are two threads getting intertwined. I say the Luchirp spell is overpowered, but my typical settings are quick game speed, raging barbars, living world, more animals(forget the name), and barbar cities. IMO, advanced start is stupid, and thoroughly unbalances FFH, but if you like it, great; just don't complain that anything is imbalanced when you use advanced start.

Now, to the OP: think of my argument in terms of turn advantage and/or compound interest. Getting a free engineer at turn 1 vs getting 5 at turn 100, then only comparing the amount of GPP earned after another 100 turns is only a small part of the discussion. The bonus hammers that early also give an additional turn advantage to the Luchirp. Lets say it take 16 turns to build a unit, but only 14 after you add the engineer to the city. Thats 2 turns you can invest somewhere else.

Imagine if that unit was a settler; I think most people here can appreciate that you don't want to wait 10 turns to found your first city, just to get that "perfect" spot. Usually, you want that first city by no later than turn 2, or you will need a much longer time to catch up to everyone else. Building a settler 2 turns earlier and hence another city 2 turns earlier means a significant increase in net gain.

Now, the few great engineers that you get can also speed up that wonder production, pretty much ensuring you get whichever early wonder you want. Great Library? Great Lighthouse? Heck, Getting Pact of Nilhorn by turn 50 or so and then pounding on your neighbor with 3 strength 7 units that can bombard cities and all they have been able to build are a few warriors...There are reasons why (great)engineers are not available until later in the game...They provide an incredible turn advantage, and can quickly cause a lagging civ to become the next super power in a very short amount of time.

I like advanced start because I find the early game less interesting than the mid game and advanced start can put you right into the mid game. I like to get into the cool casting and world/national units and other things that set FFH apart from the same old axes of BTS asap.

I know... scouts capturing animals and all that good stuff is unique to FFH too, but I'm hung up on the awesome units more than the improved SP play of FFH.

I don't think it's stupid, but I accept that it is unbalanced (only in some cases - such as Luch). It would be easy to balance, I think, but would require significant play testing and it isn't high on the priority list of fixes (which I have no problem with - Kael and team are amazing and they know best what needs to get done first).

I can and will concede that an advance start might imbalance that spell, and many many other things in the game, like Grigori\Cabalim Archmages. It would be nice to see things rebalanced for advance start people but the project is very big so I agree with Eco that it probably won't be done.
The turn 1 spell is a viable option, but I think for a long game waiting is beter. If you're aiming to crush the AI starting at turn 120 then geting the early engineers is a good thing. I tend to Mystycism\God King out warriors to grab cities earlier then tech to writing. Around the I reserch writing I have my cities and start geting GE's to settle, then have the writing sage build an academy to boost the GE's science output. Faster mud golem has no appeal to me because they cant do anything, and by the time they can I've got quite a few from the nearby AI anyway. Faster warriors is unnessisary.
You dont only get more GPP by waiting, but more Engineers and more hammers. The patience it takes to wait 100 turns to use the spell pays off by turn 125 if you get 5 engineers. 125X1=5X25 (Engineer Value Turns). Considering the hammers are a bigger issue in the first few turns still would only compensate another, say 25 turns value to me. After that waiting gives you much much more. 100X5=500 200X1=200, and over the course of even a 400 turn game you get a value of 1500 Engineer turns vs 400 Engineer turns. Even if you wait its realistic to grab the great lighthouse, albeit 50 turns later. For later wonders my way is much more valuble.
GE'ing the Great lighthouse early is a very good plan too, but not the only viable strategy.

But as for the question of the spell breaking the game, which is the centeral theme, I would have to say that the spell isnt that much more considerable then say, elven bulding in forrests. Beter tile hammers, better food once they get leaves, faster improving esp in the all forest start locs. The Sidar long term can make much more powerfull cities by settling Shades. Grigori get free highly expirinced troops.
Its a good spell and I feel that in normal game play it fits nicely with other teams advantages.

Goodgimp said:

Yea, the poster being referred to stated that it was overpowered only with Advanced Start, which I could sorta see. I don't think that's a big deal.

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powerful ? yeah. Overpowered ? Nah. It also depends how advanced is the start.

Onedreamer has summed my point up entirely.

Here's why it was put in bug thread:

You have to delete the unit who carries the hammer to get it back onto the ground to become an engineer. If it was meant to work this way, would it require a unit sacrifice? Did I miss something and Luch became a blood sacrifice sect in the lore? Obviously, it is not working as intended. Unless, of course, the team did feel that sacrificing a unit should be the cost of moving the hammer. The fact that you cannot drop them tells me that they may have had something else in mind.

I think the hammer was that once a weapon always a weapon. If it was meant to be moved, then why not just get x hammers in cap.

The problem is, as a weapon it completely sucks. +1 strength on a single unit or an engineer.... Maaaaybe if it was +4 str (for an assassin), I'd consider using it as a weapon. So, everyone turns a blind eye to deleting units for benefit.

It was originally written so that a unit carrying the weapon could also hand it off to a citizen to make them an engineer. And I believe you were still able to grab it back from the engineer to use as a weapon.

The extra code to allow something to go from promotion to building and back without stopping at the equipment middle-ground caused some serious issues though (can't recall what exactly, it was used for more than the hammer), and had to be removed.

So, it isn't intended that you have to sacrafice a unit to put the hammer in your city, it is just a side-effect of not having found the precise code that will work for doing it more seamlessly.

If you want to close a seam, have them all pop in the cap or spread them over the empire, and disapear if the unit is killed (it can still be handed to another unit, right?). Of course, make the weapon worth losing a free engineer (or 2, or 3). The weapon should not help defense, there is sufficient turtle capacity already.

Or, we could rename the spell: "the great hammer race that no scout wants to win - or even participate in". At least have them all pop in the cap to avoid that silliness.

I hear we are getting more equipment, so I imagine the policy of +1 must change. Let's get some wild gear:

See Invis
Sentry
+1 move
+ leadership

Gear would be cool.

Ecofarm said:

I hear we are getting more equipment, so I imagine the policy of +1 must change. Let's get some wild gear:

See Invis
Sentry
+1 move
+ leadership

Gear would be cool.

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+50% vs Marksman, always defends against Marksman units...

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If it was originally intended that units could give hammers to citizens, then why can't units just drop the hammers so the citizens can get them normally?

Mewtarthio said:

+50% vs Marksman, always defends against Marksman units...

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bodyguards for mages

@Gillick: Normally I prefer to answer questions directly instead of point people at a thread, but in this case I figured I might not quite answer you completely, so wanted to move it out of the bug thread in case a discussion developed (not supposed to do that in the Bug Thread).


What I was meaning to point out in the post earlier is that NO equipment can be dropped. None of it. I don't remember exactly what the bug was, but there was a bug with being able to hand equipment from unit to unit and also being able to drop it. So the ability to drop items was clipped out.

What I am not sure of, is if they can make it so that the Hammer allows you to create the engineer directly from the unit, at the cost of the promotion. The closest ability like that now are Shades, who can sacrafice themselves to make a special unit, and other equipment or Priests, who sacrafice themselves to make a building. It SOUNDS like you should be able to link making a specialist from the unit, but I do not know if you can do that at the expense of a specific promotion instead of the life of the unit.

But maybe they could change it so that a unit carrying the Golden Hammer is allowed to BECOME (ie - still lose the unit) an engineer in the city. Same effect as the current "Kill the unit to place the Hammer in the City" mechanically, but feels better stylistically.

Actually, you can pick up and drop the items that are built in the city as wonders (i.e. the Lyre, Crown, etc.). There is no reason why the hammers couldn't work this way as well (although there is the added mechanic of making the hammer into a craftsman).

On the flavor issue of sacrificing units, I use a workaround. I have my Soldiers of Kilmorph transport the hammers and then use them to rush production in the target city. Technically, I am still sacrificing a unit, but it doesn't seem as bloody since I am sacrificing them for their intended use.

Mesix said:

Technically, I am still sacrificing a unit, but it doesn't seem as bloody since I am sacrificing them for their intended use.

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"Intended use". Nice argument for Calabim joined the Order or Empyrean. That is universal logic. Jedem das seine.

Edit: That was phylosophy, no offence.