Balancing Feedback

Please use this thread instead of the Download/debug thread for Balanceissues.

You should make this a sticky then.

A sticky would help.

Some general balance thoughts:

Early Elven magic (especially Dark Elves, and Wood Elves' mass forestation) is far too strong. Most magic requires lots of techs, structures and an expensive wonder. Elves not so much.

Some buildings are too expensive or generally rarely worth building. Some examples:
Observatory. Possibly too expensive compared to university or bank.
Alchemist lab. Drop the unhealthiness and reduce cost. Its junk compared to Library or Elder Council.
Graveyard. Make it +2 health, +1 unhappy. Increase cost mildly.
Mastersmith is too expensive for its effect. Reduce cost. Meteoric iron isnt really worth the gold cost either.
It would be nice if all the temples/religions could be slightly differentiated. They're almost identical at the moment.
Bowyer is too expensive given that all it does is boost Longbowmen shooting range.

Recon/skirmish line is not worth building. Some new thinking is needed here. Either give them a really high withdraw chance, increase their strength, or give them a minor bombardment ability like Longbowmen (move in, bombard, move away - so they're actually for skirmishing with). Maybe they reduce the top unit in the stack by 10% strength, but can damage all the way up to 60-80%. Only problem with this is AI won't use that. Also would increase the utility of the bowyer, making these guys still useful late game.

Given that many of the races clearly aren't "done" yet, its hard to provide constructive race balance feedback.
I suppose that we could compare to say the Empire as a baseline. Any penalties that other races getting (no top level tech, limited magic, growth penalties etc) should be balanced with bonuses.
I would definitely say that Dark Elves are too strong; they get very minor penalties in exchange for *powerful* magic and Elven troops (bonus move, first strike).
Wood Elves are stronger than High Elves; basically, the sides are identical except that wood elves get to build in forests.

Clearly the leaders aren't balanced. Some leaders get 2-3 good powers, while others have just 1-2 fairly crappy ones. Ariel or Crom for eg are fairly sick. Leader traits also clearly aren't balanced.

It would help to know what aspects of the game are considered closest to "done", and so where balance comments would be most helpful.

Ahriman said:

Early Elven magic (especially Dark Elves, and Wood Elves' mass forestation) is far too strong. Most magic requires lots of techs, structures and an expensive wonder. Elves not so much.

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That's cuz all Elves are magical from the very beginnin. Elves have a natural talent toward magic. Whereas, humans have to develop their magic. Makes sense, don't it, since Elves are a more ancient race.

BTW, tho the Lizardmen aren't fully developed, aren't they sposed to reach the same point of early magical strength?

I have no problem with a design decision to give Elves earlier magic than the other races, and overall to make them more inclined to magic than other races. That fits the fluff, as you say.

However, given how much earlier they get their magic, that means that their spells need to be less powerful for a given spell level than other spell schools. Level 1 elf magic will come potentially hundreds of turns before level 1 fire or air magic, so it needs to be noticeably less powerful.
For example, Dark Elves are just ridiculous; they can get DoomBolts (strength 5 Summons with collateral damage) incredibly early.

Consider that the DEs have to fight an almost constant rush of barbarians and their spells make sense. As DEs, I spend half the game fightin barbs and fortifyin my borders so I can do other things.

On any map other than the Warhammer campaign map, DEs won't fight any more barbarians than anyone else. If you design balance solely for one map, then you are making this mod only a fraction of the coolness and playability that it could have.

I don't even like the Warhammer world map. Factions are so far apart, so there are only 2-3 different factions that any particular civ is any going to have any significant relationships/wars with.

Besides, you don't need UberFireballs to fight barbarians. 2 move swordsmen do just fine.

However, given how much earlier they get their magic, that means that their spells need to be less powerful for a given spell level than other spell schools. Level 1 elf magic will come potentially hundreds of turns before level 1 fire or air magic, so it needs to be noticeably less powerful.
For example, Dark Elves are just ridiculous; they can get DoomBolts (strength 5 Summons with collateral damage) incredibly early.

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i was also considering this when i made the initial spell mod. i was seriously contemplating adding in another tier of magic, tier 0 if you will, with very basic spells for early game elves and lizardmen. but my main issue here was lack of flavorful, weak and USEFUL spells. otherwise id agree with you.

The Hedge magic basically does this. Its mildly useful in the early game, and is available very early. Its very balanced I think.

As it is, elf magic needs to be toned down or pushed back later (higher tech requirements for their mage tower, eg).

I think Elf magic is fine. Elves HAVE to have powerful magic from the beginnin cuz they have so many enemies or such a large influx of barbarians. If their magic was any less, they would be destroyed too quick.

RLAF; try playing on a random map with Dark Elves. Try using DoomBolt early on. See how easy it is to conquer entire empires with a handful of units. Hear the lamentations of the women.

I have. I still think it's fine.

I've just tried chaos (Kurgans) magic, and I think there is no problem with a particular magic power-wise : they are all damn powerfull. I used 2 second tier mages with death (I post at work, and I don't have my notes...) magic, and won every war I was involved in. The direct damage zone spells are damn powerfull, you can weaken whole armies with a single spell.(I haven't even tried the chaos specific spells !)

Whereas you want or not to tone down magic isn't tied to how much you crush the AI using it : I guess in final version it will use spells(it sometimes does so, but I haven't spotted any use of it in my 0.12D game). It is tied more to the overall balance you want between classical units and mages.

My personal opinion is it would be optimal if zone spells affected a limited number of units, therefore enforcing the need of more than two or three mages (to take care of fizzle (?)). The best of best would be to have some spells with which you could select your targets, and others hitting blindly X targets. It would help bringing some diversity.

Yes, all the magics are very powerful.
But chaos magics and elemental magics and lore magics come relatively late (eg; they require 4 universities, which needs education, or 4 observatories, which needs astronomy, etc) while elf magics come much earlier.

The elf magic wonders are cheap, while the other magic wonders are very expensive.

To use the basic magics (like fire lore...) with kurgans, and I bet with other chaos factions, the only far flung tech you need is *can't remember name* giving access to the tier two chaos sorcerer. You'll get this tech early on cause it also gives your (must have) religion. No combinatin of buildings are required, only a coven to produce adepts, and some time/easy fights to upgrade to tier two.

I haven't tried elves, but it is only logical they get their magic even sooner, as they are an elder clan, as stated in background. I also spotted the elven AI present in my game had small cities compared to other factions, so it is a balance matter.
I expect the lizardmen to have their magic as easily as the elves, or even earlier, because they are the direct heirs of the Ancient Ones.

All in all I think zone damage spells needs to be limited in some ways for all factions(see above post), as they tend to marginalize other units too much, effectively giving too much power to factions who are able to rush for it early on.

Haven't played chaos for a while, but the tier2 chaos sorcerer used to require the Slaanesh, Nurgle and Tzeentch techs. I'll try that next game.

Absolutely agree about limiting zone damage spells. One of the level 2 Lore of Air spells does up to 80% damage to everything in 2 tiles in every direction.....

Slaanesh doesn't seem to do anything at the moment.

Horrors of Tzeentch are underpowered considering their tech costs.

Ahriman said:

Yes, all the magics are very powerful.
But chaos magics and elemental magics and lore magics come relatively late (eg; they require 4 universities, which needs education, or 4 observatories, which needs astronomy, etc) while elf magics come much earlier.

The elf magic wonders are cheap, while the other magic wonders are very expensive.

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Have you considered that the reason for that? It's to reflect the accuracy of WH better. Remember that WH is based off of many old armybooks (and the most recent one, of couse). So, it has to reflect the history of those accurately. And who had magic first in the armybooks? THE ELVEN CIVS!

But who had the most schools of magic? The Empire. Jus be glad the magic schools aren't Empire specific.

Yes, elves were the first to develop magic. But that doesn't mean that their earliest magic was as powerful as that of the Imperial Colleges. More importantly; game balance >>> fluff.

Um...yeah, DEs have Dark Magic (Chaos-based magic, but not same as jus Chaos magic), HEs have High Magic (opposite of Dark Magic basically), and WEs have Nature Magic (trees and such). Now, due to their specially magical nature as Elves, wouldn't their early magic be stronger than the magic developed by races who don't have an innate magical ability? It makes sense.
It's like a guitarist who has great talent and learns as much as is known for his time period, and then nother guitarist comes who has lil talent and learns more cuz more stuff is known in his time period. The second guy knows more. However, the first guy amazes people more. Same with the Elven magic vs. other magic.

Ahriman said:

game balance >>> fluff.

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Game balance is still partial to historical accuracy in this case. Why? It has to fit the WH armybooks.