Warriors to axemen

Axemen have 25% or 33% (no metal) more STR than warriors depending on metals and cost 2.4x times more than them to manufacture.

The only other units with such a cost difference is Hunters to Rangers. They have a 2.5x cost increase, but get a 75% more STR. Scouts to Hunters is 2.4x but they get double STR.

The only other unit upgrade that gets only a 33% STR increase is Adepts to Mages, and they don't rely on STR.

Other upgrades like Horsemen to Horse archers are double the cost for 50% more str or Axes to Champs who get 33% more STR for only double the hammer cost.

Why does warriors -> axmen compete for both largest hammer difference and smallest str difference among unit upgrades? They don't get substantially different abilities (they lose city defense for 10% city attack) Axemen to champs is also one of the weaker upgrades out there, but its not abysmal.

All together its the warrior thats causing the glut, axemen and champs are fair matches to other units of their level. I propose either removing their bronze weapons (they use clubs anyway), which would be cool in that they would still be better than no metal axeman but much worse than bronze axes, or increasing their cost to 40 which would be cool in that there would actually be a cost difference between scouts and warriors, making scouts a more interesting choice. In the first case axes would be a solid 66% beater than warriors, and in the second they would only cost 50% more.

I'm not sure why people get so upset over this, especially people who don't like warriors in the first place, highest cost for lowest payoff is a legit issue.

We are in feature lock, but the modders are still tweaking the balance and the AI. Its something legitimate to bring up.

I think fixing bugs, improving AI and balancing better are all allowed under Kael's feature lock. Removing Warriors' bronze weapons would be a simple and probably a very effective way of dealing with the issue of Axemen being such a poor upgrade, and I would strongly support it!

After all, how do those Warriors upgrade their clubs to bronze? (It's not as if they have cutting weapons which benefit from the bronze - who would ever make a bronze club anyway? )

Thanks Steven.

Bronze clubs make the think Macemen

Even if FFH2 had macemen, I don't think the skill to train these 8 STR military units would come so early in a civ's development. =)

Best regards,
Steven.

If warriors are weakened (as they should be), they need a boost against animals and barbarians so one doesn't get overrun early. Taking away bronze is fine, too. Bronze for axemen, iron for champs, and mithril for national uber units makes the most sense to me, as far as metals balance goes; the metal techs should be cheapened a bit too.

As it is now, I've concluded that balanced resources is a necessary setting. Access to bronze is ridiculously important as it is now, being worth 3-4 normal resources. It's more important than mana.

Axemen at 5 base strength sounds fair, plus bronze is 6. Fortified warriors would still have at least 4.5 strength in a city (probably 5.1 due to culture), enough to prevent pre-siege rushes from being too good. Taking away the axeman's city attack would make sense if they are given more strength. Maybe champs should get another point, too.

Just about to say that Higher Game. Just give every unit it the Melee line (bar Warriors) +1 strength enhancement. Might actually do that tonight in my XML and see what happens, about time I played a game as the Doviello anyways.

I haven't had a problem with dealing with barbs in M even without metals, under J I would agree with you wholeheartedly though. Plus denying warriors metals wouldn't affect the pre-bronze working game. If you think its a problem under M an later I could see +% vs barbs for warriors, but I wouldn't like to see them with an advantage over animals, you can still build scouts for that.

I can see what you mean about giving axes +1, but then they would be very much superior to horsemen and hunters. They are already better than both those units in raw str and giving them base 5 would just create another issue. It would definitely fix the melee line issue though.

I can see your point about mithril champs too but I get mithril in so few games I don't feel in place giving an opinion on them.

Thanks Higher Game, sorry if I derailed your IW thread, I do think that the cost of IW should be toned down so it isn't more than mages at least. I wonder if they would come around more if we suggested something a little more specific, like a 20% cost decrease on the IW tech itself and the said nerf to warriors. I dunno if that would be all you want or not though.

Azhral said:

Just about to say that Higher Game. Just give every unit it the Melee line (bar Warriors) +1 strength enhancement. Might actually do that tonight in my XML and see what happens, about time I played a game as the Doviello anyways.

Click to expand...

The melee line of units already dominates the game. Now you wanna make them stronger?

I think the best course of action (if any is necessary) would be to nerf Warriors. Remove bronze weapons, perhaps increase their cost a bit as well.

I would support the removal of bronze wepons from wariors. of corse dealing with the early barb rush has to be considered.

maybe someone should make a poll on this. what would be the best solution;
-Remove bronze wepons from wariors
-Make wariors more expensive (maybe slightly tone down early barbs with it)
-Make axe/champs cheaper to produce
-Decrease IW research cost
-Reduce the strength of all units by 1, therefore making the reletive difference between wariors and the next tier units more significant(if i remember correctly when this first came out everything was 1 less strength, and wariors got their big boost when all units got 1 more strength, making the reletive difference between wariors and the next more significant).
-Leave everything as it is
-Other suggestions?


I know polls are more reflective of a comunities attitude than the normal "who's got the loudest voice" which applies in forums. in other games that i've been involved in the developers would only listen to balance requests if it was supported by a poll. once a poll is made it cant be modified, so it might pay to first discuss ideas for the poll options before posting it

I agree on removing bronze weapons from warriors.
+25% against barbs would compensate that and would invite using axemen against humans/AI. Decrease Axemen cost by 5.
For animals scouts/hunters would be suited, so greatly balanced. Do not remove metals from higher troops, as in many games there is no iron or mithril in your territory.

in a way i also like the importance of finding bronze. i wonder if having bronze spikes on the clubs could give +0.5 strength?

actually now i think about it, i have often fought off the barbs with simple warriors without weapons as i'd get acher/horse/recon to counter it. maybe weakening warriors means more reason to get achers. currently many people forget about achers for city def as the melee line does the job nicely.

does anyone know where bronze weapons are in the .xml? i might try a game with no bronze for warriors.

Actually giving everything -1 would be kind of cool, and its suggestions like that that make me want to have discussion before doing a poll. I was thinking of running a poll after a few days though. I think if I did a poll it would be multiple choice in case someone thought there where multiple solutions they liked the same.

+25% would fit, and make the early game a little easier going. I think if they got that then Barb city defense archers wouldn't need the weak promotion, or would that be too much of a change?

I don't mind having no bronze warriors to fight off barbs myself, but I don't want to cause someone else a problem.

I havn't actually looked into FFH's coding, though this is a big enough deal to me that I think I might look into modding bronze off of warriors for my own FFH game so I'll probably crack open the .xml and test it tomorrow, if no one has told you how by then I'll post how I did it here (providing of course I didn't fail or break the game)

Tlalynet said:

I havn't actually looked into FFH's coding, though this is a big enough deal to me that I think I might look into modding bronze off of warriors for my own FFH game so I'll probably crack open the .xml and test it tomorrow, if no one has told you how by then I'll post how I did it here (providing of course I didn't fail or break the game)

Click to expand...

Out of my head it is something like iWeaponsTier, warriors have value <1> and it's found near the end in of each unit in UnitInfo.xml . Chenge it to <0> to remove bronze capabilaty.

no bronze wariors to fight barbs works for me. IMO Wariors should be a starting unit(like vanilla civ) and you should try to upgrade fast to survive instead of sticking around with warriors while having time to build mages etc


I was just playing with the .XML, i removed bronze weapons from warriors. I slightly increased warrior price from 25 to 30 hammers. naturally running all-warrior defence is no longer a no-brainer. It also makes early scouts a bit more attractive, they are often neglected.

i decided to boost the achery line which underpowered IMO and is often neglected, boosting acher, longbow, and crosbow city def from 25% to 35%. this means if you want good def it means a step into the achery line, as opposed to my previous method of simply defending cities with axemen/champs etc. previously i never saw the need to get achery as my warriors and then more advanced units could defend well enough, and achers only defend cisties and dont do much for stopping pillaging etc. removing the somewhat redundant achery line from ever being reseatched meant that i could get down the other lines much faster. I always thought it was far too easy to walk over the AI achers anyway, so this might cause a bit more of a defencive game. although this is a melee line discussion thread, i thought this is relevent as it is a replacement defender for the wariors that are no longer the no-brainer choice for early city defenders.

Then i made axemen a bit more attractive over warriors by boosting axemen city attack from 10% to 15%. it also makes axemen comparatively more attractive than previously in respects to other units of that tier. This partly compensates for the achers improvement, and also boosts axemen attractiveness over sticking with promoted warriors who will now no longer be able to walk over achers. This means that axemen will totally walk over warriors defending cities, giving a good reason to get achers by the time the opponent is attacking with axes.

Of course now archers will now be better defenders against horse/recon line.
Finally i reduced IW tec cost from 2600 to 2300.

I wonder if these changes will mean more diversion down the melee and achery line than scrape by with wariors far past their due date while getting an early start on the magic/economy line etc before delivering a crushing blow with your chosen tec path of domination.
i guess for dealing with barbs it means getting at least one step down the recon, melee, achery, or horse line quickly to be able to better combat the barbs. maybe this also means some interesting tec path decisions as it's always a compromise between resource, economy and military tecs at the start.

This is good thread but theres previous discussions that should be taken into account. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=345456

The only solution thats likely to get implemented is the simplest one. Heres mine which is going for as few and least invasive changes as possible.

1. Remove Warriors access to Bronze Working and Axemens access to mithril. Rationale: They cause problems for the units above them.

2. Cut cost of Hunting by 50% and cost of Huntin Lodge by 33%. Rationale: We suddenly need an animal killer and barbarian defender. If Hunters were the earliest Tier 2 unit then they could be that unit. It'll also bring animal capturing back into the game.

3. Add the deducted beakers (~230 at Noble) from Hunting onto Hidden Paths to keep the Elves in check. Rationale: Part of above.

4. Cut 25% beaker cost from Techs Animal Handling, Poisons and Bowyers as well. Rationale: They'll still be more expensive than Stirrups, but like Horse Archers they might see some play.

5. Halve the cost of Iron Working, add a new tech with pre-requisites Smelting and Warfare that contains Champions.

1. Remove Warriors access to Bronze Working and Axemens access to mithril. Rationale: They cause problems for the units above them.

Yes, fully agree.

2. Cut cost of Hunting by 50% and cost of Huntin Lodge by 33%. Rationale: We suddenly need an animal killer and barbarian defender. If Hunters were the earliest Tier 2 unit then they could be that unit. It'll also bring animal capturing back into the game.

Needs testing, in beginning I would suggest 25% and 25%. Animal part I agree, for barbarians warriors would fit better.

3. Add the deducted beakers (~230 at Noble) from Hunting onto Hidden Paths to keep the Elves in check. Rationale: Part of above.

Not sure about this one.

4. Cut 25% beaker cost from Techs Animal Handling, Poisons and Bowyers as well. Rationale: They'll still be more expensive than Stirrups, but like Horse Archers they might see some play.

Poisons are fine, many go into assassins. Bowyers, animals - yes.

5. Halve the cost of Iron Working, add a new tech with pre-requisites Smelting and Warfare that contains Champions.[/QUOTE]

Too complex, no? First do previous changes and then see if something extra is needed for balance.

How about just using Fall Further's method of giving axmen +25% vs warriors?

-Colin

interesting suggestion Colin, it would have a minimal impact, while boosting axemen vs warriors
warriors can be used against any creature. so giving a bonus of axemen vs warriors doesn't stop people using warriors for the standard unit vs everything else.

i'm not sure if it's worth taking iron away from axemen and mythril away from champions. that would weaken the melee line. I find the melee line not that strong as it is in most of my games, with the over-powered magic and religious line, and horse line giving nearly the strength for a lot more mobility.

I agree with Senethro, the hunters line is kind of lame in most situations. i wonder if all these balances are getting a bit big and off-topic. and probably deserve their own thread.

anyway, lets add colins suggestion to the list of poll options, and see what people think.

Colin, I think that if someone would make a poll, Your idea should be one of the options.
But I prefer removing acces to bronze weapons from warriors, and slight increase in cost (+5 hammers?)

I like no bronze and +5 hammers the best, I didn't think the +5 was needed at first, but if its there it still makes scouts cheaper and they could be built a turn faster in many cases so I think that would be flavourful.

I agree that ReaderCollins idea should be on the poll, it would be quite effective in reducing the problem. The only reason I wouldn't pick it myself is that as it stands I can go warriors vs champs (eek) with quite a bit of success...

Many good ideas, as it stands I'm thinking of a multiple option selectable poll as follows

No bronze warriors
30 hammer warriors
35 hammer warriors
40 hammer warriors
No bronze + 30 hammer warriors
-1 to everything would create balance
Axes +25% to warriors
Warriors are perfect
Axemen don't need Mithril
Champions don't need Mithril
IW is a fair price
The IW line should be comparable to sorcery
The IW line should be a bit cheaper than sorcery
Iron and champs should be split into two techs at half the cost of IW each
Senthro's 50%tech and 33% Lodge Hunter adjustments are just right
Tark's 25% Hunter adjustments are just right
Hunting is fine as is
Cheaper animal handling and bowyers
Cheaper poisons
Other T3 lines are perfect as is

Thats 20 options so far. I have room for 5 more if anyone has other balance suggestions

This would be less of a warrior multi poll and more of a every balance issue that has been discussed since J and not already addressed poll, but I think that would be interesting to see.

Pie is not an option yet, but if there is space it will be.

I agree Axemen don't need mithril, mithril should make them irrelevant. I'm inclined to go with Sentrhos cost reduction in theory, but I agree it may be too much and I think I would have to mod a few games before choosing one or the other.

I could see adding the beakers to hidden paths, but I should note that I don't usually need hidden paths right away as the elves because I go education and expand horizontally a lot. On the other hand Guardians is one of the most ridiculously powerful civics in the game, I think thats fair.

I agree with both animal handling and bowyers, but I think if animal handling was cheaper feral bond would have to be more expensive, if you can get the Baron too early he can destroy the world. The FOL hero is good too. I don't know about poisons, assassins are pretty cool as is.

I like five, but I think it goes beyond the scope of minor balance changes since you have a new tech involved.