Suggested changes to combat balance

Yes, I know, another dime a dozen suggestion thread, but I will feel better to say my piece.

Let me start with the usual well deserved praise for the team. I love FfH and play it almost exclusively. I specially like that they try to implement mechanics that can be used by the AI, to keep the game balanced and challenging. I also like the medieval/fantasy feel of the mod. Unfortunately, I think the fantasy is done better than the medieval, so I have a few suggestions on the balance between unit classes. None of the changes I recommend are complex, there are few additions, and I hope I am not creating the same unit/counterunit mechanic of medieval combat in the original civ4. I make all these suggestions in one thread because I see them as part of a single, new way of looking at combat. They make sense (to me) as a whole, not piece by piece.

The recon line is very well done, and I can recommend no changes.

The Melee line would also remain much the same, with two additional abilities: All civs save the elves woudl be given the ability now held by Khazad to create battering rams and the creation of a mechanic called be-siege. Both have to do with changes to city defenses, and are explained then.

The archery line is much better now with the addition of defensive strike. That said, I think that defensive strike remain underpowered. In most of my new games, it seldom happens and doesn't do much damage. So: the base likelyhood of an archery unit to carry out a first strike should be increased dramatically, to say 33% chance for a level one unit. Then it can increase with drill promotions. The possible damage should also increase, but be capped. So, say an archer could do max. 20% damage to a unit, with the likelyhood of this happening going up as they approach drill 4. A longbowman get capped at say 40%, the crossbowmen at 75% The other large change is to give archery unit collateral damage. After all, in medieval warfare this was exactly what you would use archer for offensively. Again, damage could be capped, and it would be weaker than what catapults can do and without the same withdrawal chances, but that change would make using archers part of your offensive force viable, plus it would help the elves dramatically given their lack of siege units. Finally, get rid of arquebusiers. I don't think they fit. I know why the team added them, but with all the changes I think they are less and less relevant and they still stick out. I say make gunpowder units something for the dwarves only. Create dwarven crossbowmen as a tier 3 archery unit for dwarves (the equivelant of longbowmen), and then add dwarven arquebusiers as their archery NU.

The mounted line would also change. The base mounted unit would be the horseman at 4/3/3 with horse ridding, and it can carry bronze and iron weapons. They can do flaking damage attack to siege weapons. At stirrups there would be a split into light and heavy mounted lines. Horse archers would be the light line. A single base strength point added, but an increase withdrawal chance. Also, they would be immune to defensive fire, carry bronze and iron weapons, and have double yields for pillage. The heavy line would be called cavalry. They would have a two base point increase in power. They can carry all weapons. They would also have a 50% combat bonus when attacking in open ground (grassland, plains, deserts, tundra, ice). They would also have the ability at combat 4 to gain the equivalent of the blitz ability. Get rid of the armored cavalry tech, and make the mounted NU's come with warhorses. There would be a new NU for the light line, which besides a strength upgrade gets visibility promotions and its own defensive fire ability similar to that of crossbowmen. The knight is the NU for the heavy line. The only addition to knights would be the ability to gain the cause fear promotion, so they could scatter weak enemies then they charge, and blitz.
The dwarves would use charriots as their heavy cavalry line. The Hippus would gain a tier one 3/2/3 charriot unit available at exploration, to give them a use for their palace horses.

The siege line remains about the same. The big change again is making cannons only for the dwarves. Humans would upgrade their catapults to trebuchets. Dwarves could upgrade their dwarven trebuchets to cannons. Dwarven siege units are of course more powerful.

Three city defense buildings would be added, to make taking a heavily fortified position the real epic challenge that they should be. At construction you could build High Walls. They need walls as a prerequisite. They are VERY expensive shieldwise, and costly to maintain (3-5 gpt at least). They also boost city defense massively. Battering rams would be able to break down city defenses from pallisades and walls, but NOT High walls. For that you need the other siege units or fireballs. At engineering you could then also add Citadel (acts like the castle in regular civ4). It boosts city defenses some, but adds a 20% defense bonus to all units in the garrison, and this boost remains even if city defenses are whittled down. Again, citadels are expensive to build, and costly to maintain. This should mean that only critical cities, like the capital, or some crucial strategic city will have them. At Strenght of will, bring back the ring of warding, or some other building to give units added resistance to magic.

Naval units would be renamed and given new graphics to create a gunpowder free look - I know there are graphics out there for better non-cannon armed warships from medieval times, like galleases.

random changes:
The siege ability is akin to blockade but on land. A melee unit could be ordered to besiege: they become immobile, but then deny use of all adjacent tiles to the enemy. That means that with a few melee units, would could choke a city of all resorces and income. This allows one to neutralize a city while a force strong enough to take it down comes. It also encourages the enemy to an active defense, since sitting in their city isn;t that great when the city is starving and your bank account is dwindling.

To counter a more powerful mounted line, the drill promotion should increase combat power against mounted units and all melee units could have access to the anti-mounted unit promotion after combat 2.

Add a promotion to give combat bonuses against recon units. Make it available to recon units and light mounted units.

The level 2 and three shadow spells should be switched, given the greater power of city defenses. The mistform would be made a level 2 summons, while shadowwalking would be a level 3 promotion.

Def strikes arent underpowered at all IMO. Try getting a couple longbows or above and go strait down the drill line, getting precision and keen eyes. They sometimes did about 50%, the highest ive seen was to a catapult over 70%. With xbows, they regulary do over 40%. Because the attackers will be damaged, my 2 longbows get away hardly damaged. If you managed to get canibalize, they will devour any army unless the enemy has superior units/counters.

I kinda like the idea of having siege working as blockade does, but on land.

Three city defense buildings would be added, to make taking a heavily fortified position the real epic challenge that they should be. At construction you could build High Walls. They need walls as a prerequisite.

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This is a good idea. Besides the Wall requirement, I'd put a min pop required (let's say 10) and the ability to defense against marksman units. That means having High Walls in a city cause a percentage of failing the attack of marksman units, something like Fear mechanism...

No other building in the game has anything like minimum pop requirement or per-turn upkeep cost. Why would enhanced walls?

Civ4 doesn't support the scrapping of your own buildings, which makes the upkeep cost particularly problematic. Oftentimes, frontline cities stop being frontline when the dust settles, and then you'd be left with buildings sucking maintenance and doing nothing in return, with no way to get rid of them, which makes no sense and would make those buildings a bad idea to build in general.

No upkeep cost for High Walls!

I'd keep the minimum pop requirement just to allow the building to be done only in a quite advanced situation. As for the problem of the moving of the edges of you civilization...that's why Civ 4 is the best tactic game ever! you have to take account of everything and plan your building smartly...

I would like some more defence buildings, perhaps High Walls and a few spells or something.

At the moment, cities aren't a very good defensive position. They can be bombarded down to nothing, at which point even sitting on a plain forested hill is better. An advanced city should be the hardest tile in the game to capture.

Forget who mentioned it recently, but regarding recon, it was funny how "in the field", assassins were nearly the same in terms of attack power as rangers. However, rangers have a tough time attacking cities, whereas assassin's don't.

Maybe assassins should have an easier time attacking targets in cities, and a harder time in the field. Yes, you can come up with great fiction for a killer sneaking into a war camp and getting away with offing some mages in the middle of the night, but better or more typical tales telling will be urban based. Dark alleys, hanging out incognito in taverns, whatever.

I'm unsure how one'd implement "weak in the field, strong in a city" unless it was through a lower base attack strength but a free city raider promotion (and access to up to city raider 3), or if some equivalent to city raider was cooked up so as not to get any crossed wires about other recon units accidentally getting CR1, 2, or 3... like Rangers and Beastmasters. This might even extend to defensive city type promotions being available, much like archers often access (forget the name of the one that looks like an inverted triangle with a star in it, ha ha). It would at least equalize "assassin vs. assassin" battles in an urban setting. Foreign assassin knows the streets (+% city attack), but the local one knows them just as well (+% city defense).

Again, just a thought, and unsure who to credit since I saw the seeds of it recently elsewhere, net of it though is that just as rangers have a tough time attacking cities but do fine in the field, maybe assassins, and for that matter, shadows (or I guess Alazkhan and Rathus Denmore?) should thrive in cities, and have a little tougher of a time out in the field.

Defensive Strikes presently work out pretty well even if the unit in question isn't an archer. I've been playing a game with the Bannor where I've got multiple Drill 4 axemen sitting around since I have been at war near-constantly since about Turn 60. Valin gets them with considerable frequency too.

Assassins' weakness in the field is that they're going to get jacked if they're left out there by themselves; rangers can wander around pretty safely solo.