Noble Houses and Revolutions Feedback thread

I think some balancing still needs to be done. So feel free to post any feedback on them (using Wildmana 8.0+)
You need to use the Noble Houses Gameoption to enable them.

changes (so far) for next version:

• no revolutions below 5 cities
• easier to keep Support high if number of cities below 15
• more difficult to keep Support high if number of cities above 15
• handicap modifier for AI (penalty below noble, no change on noble, bonus on higher difficulties)

documentation needed:

• Ghallanda Plantation
• Strategy tag Wandering Inn

i have been having a good time experimenting with the noble houses in the last couple patches, but i think just a bit more documentation would go a long way. Just a few lines in the Civilopedia on strategy tips from someone who understands the intended purpose of the guild units would be awesome.

For example, i have trouble figuring out the rules of when the House Ghellandia guy can build a plantation or not. (In current game I can't find any squares where it is allowed. Riverside only?) Also i am not clear on what to do with the Wandering Inn.

In my previous game i was using the Bankers' house -- the guy who can open a mining or fishing company -- even when the button would light up, he kept taking my 200 bucks and not producing a resource. I have no idea whether that's a bug or working as intended with a chance for failure. IIRC it worked about 3 times in the first 5, and then failed maybe 8 straight times.

Thanks to all the team. BTW the Austrin are really fun.

ps. The new Necropolis behavior makes the "Ancient Ruins" option of Erebus Continents into a death trap, since that map script places a lot of graveyards at the beginning of the game.

Sephi, thank you for your work. I like your modmod more than any other. No FFH2 any more)) Only WildMana!!!!!!))

I didn't have time to try WildMana 8. I played 7th version. But anyway i will post my comments about noble houses.

I tryed to play with this option only once. Then i never turnd it on. Too overpovered. That one time was with Svaltafar, I always play svaltafar (FoL+Ancient Forests+Towns) and combination with noble houses was big disbalance, they are too overpovered. I had three of them: the first was arcane house, that gave me huge science boost and also 2 free metamagic mana. (Isn't it a bug that if you are the first to discover noble house you get 2 hedquoters and conseqoently you get two mana types????) Just with one extra mana I can trade from AI arround 7-10 lucsiry and food resorces. Mana should be much more rare!!!!!! Usually with 3-4 cities by the turn 250 I have around 700 beakers research. But with the help of noble houses i got around 1000. Which is a huge disbalance!!!!!! Maintenance cost is not a problem because in my strategy I always have Songs of Autumn and all other AI follow FoL.

Those additional units and additional buildings from noble houses makes the game extremelly saturated. They are too many. It's extremelly difficult to build them all and to micocontroll the game with tem!!!!!.

Please consider this ideas, may be you will like some:
1. Player cannot get help from more than one house.
2. Reduce number of avaible nouble houses. I think 4: arcane (+science), hunting (+food), war (+experience) and economy (+ little culture,+ little production and + gold) nouble houses is anough. Economy one also which helps with culture.
3. Unique units from nouble houses should be more like normal units, so they should be able to be upgraded to 4th tier units in the late game with preserving their unique promotions and abilities.
4. Micromanaging is a pain in this game. It takes alot of time to buid to controll everything and to think about the strategy which units and buildings to produce and also in which order. Many more additional units and available buildings from nouble houses makes this pain much more bigger. I suggest to reduce number of additional units and bouldings. It will be nice if one builds an executive (building should cost like settler, about 200 hamers ) and when this executive spreads house to new town it dies but it automatically construct all the unique buildings from that nouble house. (It's better to make the only one special boulding with couple of benefits. for example "hunting nouble building" which gives +2 food and possibility ty train executive, gorilla and bear) The speciall executive functions like mage|ranger|champion|kind of healer (according to special nouble house arcane|hunting|war|economy it belongs). It will greately reduce additional micromanaging and it is much more easier to balance.
5. Mana should be much more rare!!!! No additional mana from noble houses. Instead:
"Arcane" nouble house headquarters gives just 1 reagents
"War" house headquarters gives 1 iron
"Hunting" gives 1 deer and 1 bison
"Economy" gives 1 diamonds
6. Unique additional bouldings should not be so overpovered. For example "Arcane" nouble house additional boulding gived only 10-15% science boost. Not 25%!!!!!!!!!

Hello,

After my initial testing with the Noble Houses, I have made several observations as below:
1) Revolutions are occurring at too high a rate. It's incredibly devastating, AI and player alike, when you only have two cities and one of them revolt and splinter off into a new civilization. I would suggest that there be a minimum number of cities you own before revolution can occur.

2) House Cannith and Phiarlan support should be mutually exclusive. I find that one would give their support even when you already have the other (having both headquarters, but only the latest one to give support would be shown).

That's it for now, will give more feedback as I progress.

I have played houses in 7.56, just playing my first game in 8.0 and have tarrashk.
So I will only comment from my little experience with 7.56

I think about house phiarlan: normally I have good culture in my cities so a house which improves cultures is not as necesary. And it has another problem: it competes with another house. Because of this 2 issues, house phiarlan is really not liked. I never allow its support (but Im thinking on good use for the acrobat).

So or you make more exclusiveness, like more competence between all the houses, or you make phiarlan not compete with the other house.

Another bad thing is the hunters house gets negative support if you construct forges, or get construction or ingeniery... thats awful!! I always get forges for the hammers and the happiness of gold. And those 2 techs are really necesary... and this is the only house which has a problem like this. So no house Vadallis either for me.

In 1 game I got support from both the traders and the merchants. It was too much money. overpowered economy.

I never experienced revolutions. Is there a way to get rid of the house´s support? or are you forever compromised with them? I mean appart from a revolution, which sounds like something unliked.

--------------------
Well I had my first revolution with house Tarrashk. In fact, its support came so early that I had no time to go to the appropiate tech and construct/train something to get more support.
I simply made war to them and retook my city back, just 1 turn before my enemy neighbors do it.!!!
Now waiting to see what will happen, but I already constructed the training facilities and I am about to train some nobles so I raise the support. Many houses revolted these turns in other players lands. And I am just producing my first real army with eidolons and agares so its just in time to conquer some lands....!!

My experience with the Noble Houses business is pretty limited. All the houses kind of scare me off for the amount of management I'd have to do in a long game to keep them happy.

I'm usually content to simply let them fragment neighbouring enemy empires, and sometimes I will luck into one of their nice buildings via conquest. Almost like holy shrines with a bunch of gold income, sometimes a great resource too, like free Iron with House Thrashk (sp?), often way before I deserve iron. Come to think, they are like holy shrines except no mana, some other resource, XP boosts, gold, culture, something good comes with them. Maybe you should have to make a snap decision on conquests to accept support or those buildings could need deletion from your newfound city, kind of like never capturing a palace.

Anyhow, yeah, playing with them as intended seems to have a lot of risky downside, simply conquering a city which strongly supports a house takes away all the subtlety, not much downside.

Played two games of 8.0 and noticed the following issues:
1. The AI cities revolt way too easily, making for a huge imbalance; in my first game Sheaim, Illians and Infernals were all but annihilated by the revolting noble houses from their own civs. Since the leaders were good, it left me as Neutral fighting Bannor and the noble houses... needless to say it was a bit of a struggle. Retested this, and again these same civs got noble revolts.
2. Having all the noble houses as good or neutral makes the evil side a lot weaker. In both games they got annihilated by the noble houses. The weirdest part was when the good Infernals conquered Dis from the originals right from under my nose. They even killed Hyborem
3. Noble house names are broken, it just displays something in capital letters.
4. Promotion markers sometimes show up as purple

Recommendations:
1. Lower the revolt rate, or increase the support you get from buildings
2. Make infernals immune to good and neutral revolts; dont know if there are evil noble leaders, but Mercurians should be immune to those (cant really see demons suddenly decide to become traders or protectors, or angels become traders for that matter)
3. You shouldnt be able to have more than one house supporting you, having two or three houses brings in way too much bonuses.
3. Some

Playing 8.01+, around turn 280.

1. As others have observed, many or even most AI empires are being decimated by revolutions.

2. Does the mechanism too strongly favor domination play style? I'm currently having no problem maintaining house support (I have the "trade" and the "gold" noble houses -- I won't try to spell them here). However, I'm currently playing for a domination victory, so I have a constant supply of new cities to build buildings that provide house support. I can't imagine how I could maintain support if I wasn't on a city conquering rampage. (I think one house even has a negative response to DoW, but, ironically, war seems to be the only way to get enough cities to build buildings to maintain support.)

-->To solve both #1 and #2, revolutions should be strongly weighted by empire size (smaller empire = less revolutions). This would help the AI and also allow peaceful/non-expansive play style.

Pazyryk said:

Playing 8.01+, around turn 280.

1. As others have observed, many or even most AI empires are being decimated by revolutions.

2. Does the mechanism too strongly favor domination play style? I'm currently having no problem maintaining house support (I have the "trade" and the "gold" noble houses -- I won't try to spell them here). However, I'm currently playing for a domination victory, so I have a constant supply of new cities to build buildings that provide house support. I can't imagine how I could maintain support if I wasn't on a city conquering rampage. (I think one house even has a negative response to DoW, but, ironically, war seems to be the only way to get enough cities to build buildings to maintain support.)

-->To solve both #1 and #2, revolutions should be strongly weighted by empire size (smaller empire = less revolutions). This would help the AI and also allow peaceful/non-expansive play style.

Click to expand...

I agree with both points. Particularly on #2, slow growing civs may be doomed if they pick up Noble House support. Think of the Kuriotates... 3 megacities means only three Training Yards, or Inns, or whatever special building your House enjoys. Scions grow pretty darn slow too. Infernal can often get away with just a couple of cities, razing the rest to get the AC up. Some civs might be stranded on an island where there's no room to expand and you've built as many special buildings to appease a House as possible, but after that, you're cooked. So is anyone who turtles for too long.

Still, it just means if you really want to do the noble house thing, appeasing them will be a constant and important pet project.

Bribing them with gold would be nice though, wouldn't it? I know this feature only shares a name with the Revolutions mod out there, but tossing gold at problems (if you can't toss training yards or mage guilds at them) might be a twist to consider.

I'm fine with the challenge. It just needs to be evened out for peaceful/non-expansive play style. As a simple first approximation, can't you just divide "support" for each building by the number of cites (non-settlements) an empire has? So 1 inn has the same value in a 2-city empire as 8 have for a 16-city empire?

The only exception might be the war-mongering house (whatever it is called). If that one requires constant conquest/expansion, so be it (although this still doesn't work for, say, a Sheaim or Infernal high war / low expansion style).

I guess different houses could have differing approaches to expansion. Some could divide support by #cities (i.e., no reward for expansion), others might fall somewhere between that and the current high-expansion requirement.

Pazyryk said:

Playing 8.01+, around turn 280.

1. As others have observed, many or even most AI empires are being decimated by revolutions.

2. Does the mechanism too strongly favor domination play style? I'm currently having no problem maintaining house support (I have the "trade" and the "gold" noble houses -- I won't try to spell them here). However, I'm currently playing for a domination victory, so I have a constant supply of new cities to build buildings that provide house support. I can't imagine how I could maintain support if I wasn't on a city conquering rampage. (I think one house even has a negative response to DoW, but, ironically, war seems to be the only way to get enough cities to build buildings to maintain support.)

-->To solve both #1 and #2, revolutions should be strongly weighted by empire size (smaller empire = less revolutions). This would help the AI and also allow peaceful/non-expansive play style.

Click to expand...

i agree, if anything larger expansive civs that expand without building infrastructure should be more at risk from revolts not less. this would also act to balance benefits that having a larger empire brings to houses- ie greater land area + more resources and, for example +2 and +3 is greater enefitin 10 cities than in 5

Bioroid said:

Sephi, thank you for your work. I like your modmod more than any other. No FFH2 any more)) Only WildMana!!!!!!))

I didn't have time to try WildMana 8. I played 7th version. But anyway i will post my comments about noble houses.

I tryed to play with this option only once. Then i never turnd it on. Too overpovered. That one time was with Svaltafar, I always play svaltafar (FoL+Ancient Forests+Towns) and combination with noble houses was big disbalance, they are too overpovered. I had three of them: the first was arcane house, that gave me huge science boost and also 2 free metamagic mana. (Isn't it a bug that if you are the first to discover noble house you get 2 hedquoters and conseqoently you get two mana types????) Just with one extra mana I can trade from AI arround 7-10 lucsiry and food resorces. Mana should be much more rare!!!!!! Usually with 3-4 cities by the turn 250 I have around 700 beakers research. But with the help of noble houses i got around 1000. Which is a huge disbalance!!!!!! Maintenance cost is not a problem because in my strategy I always have Songs of Autumn and all other AI follow FoL.

Click to expand...

in 8.0 there is only one headquarter and commerce problem should be fixed too (noble houses influenced economy too much, they are more about special abilities)

Bioroid said:

Those additional units and additional buildings from noble houses makes the game extremelly saturated. They are too many. It's extremelly difficult to build them all and to micocontroll the game with tem!!!!!.

Click to expand...

2 units and 1 building, about the scale of Religions. AND they are optional, you can turn them off via gameoption

Vavdichal said:

Hello,

After my initial testing with the Noble Houses, I have made several observations as below:
1) Revolutions are occurring at too high a rate. It's incredibly devastating, AI and player alike, when you only have two cities and one of them revolt and splinter off into a new civilization. I would suggest that there be a minimum number of cities you own before revolution can occur.

2) House Cannith and Phiarlan support should be mutually exclusive. I find that one would give their support even when you already have the other (having both headquarters, but only the latest one to give support would be shown).

That's it for now, will give more feedback as I progress.

Click to expand...

1.) good point. I added a min city requirement for Revolutions (see first post)
2.) Why should they be mutually exclusive?

Pazyryk said:

Playing 8.01+, around turn 280.

1. As others have observed, many or even most AI empires are being decimated by revolutions.

2. Does the mechanism too strongly favor domination play style? I'm currently having no problem maintaining house support (I have the "trade" and the "gold" noble houses -- I won't try to spell them here). However, I'm currently playing for a domination victory, so I have a constant supply of new cities to build buildings that provide house support. I can't imagine how I could maintain support if I wasn't on a city conquering rampage. (I think one house even has a negative response to DoW, but, ironically, war seems to be the only way to get enough cities to build buildings to maintain support.)

-->To solve both #1 and #2, revolutions should be strongly weighted by empire size (smaller empire = less revolutions). This would help the AI and also allow peaceful/non-expansive play style.

Click to expand...

#2 is probably the reason why I did not observe #1 in my testgame. Added a modifier by empire size and one that helps out the AI a bit on higher difficulties. (see first post)

Sephi said:

1.) good point. I added a min city requirement for Revolutions (see first post)
2.) Why should they be mutually exclusive?

Click to expand...

1) Awesome, thanks.
2) They are already listed as such in the pedia (as competitive houses). In addition, the game mechanics reflect this as well, just not to the full extent. Having both houses support you and build their respective headquarters in the same city, only one (the last to offer their support) would show up in that city, yet both headquarters are still present in the city. Unless this is a bug, in which case a similar check between Empyrean and Cult of Esus could probably be used here as well.

Another quick thought - when the Traders, Risen or Protectors form their own civs, they do so apparently with the tech level of whoever they first broke off from.

Often the civs most capable of getting noble houses trying to support them in the first place, are high on the scoreboard... you need techs to unlock these houses after all.

This means the new civs end up with a lot of techs, but start very weak in terms of the number of troops. If you're not high on the leaderboard, gunning for their capital and trying to extort all their techs for peace may be a valid strategy. If you don't, the troop ratio that you might see in the BUG interface will start changing as they "catch up" and you may find that the new factions end up the top of the leaderboard before you know it. They have the techs, they have a fairly hardened capital usually (all their units start there as a garrison), and occasionally other cities they've got a presence in will flip to them.

I wonder whether playing AS one of these new factions once they arise would be tough, with such a potentially scattered empire, surrounded by the culture of others? Send your special units (missionaries, essentially) to go out and "infect" other cities in the hopes they'll flip to you some day? This do-able in worldbuilder I wonder? Or would it have to be something coded in like "Would you like to lead the Mercurians?" types of dialogue?

Aimless comments I know (wow they get a lot of techs, consider bullying them before it's too late, and wonder what it'd be like to play them), but it's definitely something which makes the game different!

Brokenbone said:

I wonder whether playing AS one of these new factions once they arise would be tough, with such a potentially scattered empire, surrounded by the culture of others? Send your special units (missionaries, essentially) to go out and "infect" other cities in the hopes they'll flip to you some day? This do-able in worldbuilder I wonder? Or would it have to be something coded in like "Would you like to lead the Mercurians?" types of dialogue?

Click to expand...

You can play as them. Everytime one of your cities revolts you are given the chance to switch sides.

I only did that once so far though as Sheiam, but switched too early, ended up with only one city and they simply declared war and took my only city with a lot of pyre zombies .

that 15 treshold looks bad imho, it would be better to use a "soft" formula otherwise people might not be willing to expand over 15 cities

I still think its should be base on how large you are compared to every one else. Modified slightly to the size of map for some leeway on gigantic maps so you can go on a military rampage and not having random civilizations pop up randomly in your own empire over and over.

[to_xp]Gekko;9115733 said:

that 15 treshold looks bad imho, it would be better to use a "soft" formula otherwise people might not be willing to expand over 15 cities

Click to expand...

it is a soft formula, at 15 the formula is equal to what it is now.