balance issues (not bugs)

[Shiggs713]

I saw Kalimakhus mention that it would be a good idea to start a balance issue type of thread and I agree, so I'll take that initiative and begin with something simple, from my first impressions of the latest version.

The new city maintenance and legion maintenance are pretty nice. I found it very difficult to keep my science spending greater than 20% in the early game, while I was expanding and gaining legions from Cao Cao. In fact I nearly had units go on strike a few turns while I was really stretched thin (trying to finish him off). While I like the restrictions and balance that it gives, I think both of them together are a little harsh, especially in the beginning. Maybe a slight tone down, or something to help civs in the early going would improve it.

Finally in the later stages of the game I was able to get it up to 70%, and kinda keep up in tech, at least only a few steps behind. But this was mainly because of tech diffusion. Honestly, some of the techs (playing on Diety) it said something to the effect of 7000/8000 before I even began to research it. So basically in some cases tech diffusion was doing 7/8 of my research. Maybe it should have a cap or some limitation.

One last thing, with the legions. It is possible to join or quit a legion any number of times in 1 turn. This can be easily abused by a human player. Say you have a stack of 10 axemen attacking a city, and 1 legion that is grade A at melee combat. You can use the 3 non core units, attack.... then regroup legion, select another 3 non core, attack again.... you get the idea, basically it'll allow you to make 4 legion members to act as 10+ while on the offensive.

other than those small gripes I have nothing else right now. Fantastic mod

 

[stmartin]

Yes, the maintenance.

Comment on guys, I need all your feedback to possibly make the best adjustment. AP said in his latest post that decrease current maintenance by 25% would be nice.

The current maintenance increase is consisted of the following parts:

1. The city distance maintenance, base value from 25 to 40, and slightly heavier population weight.
2. The city number maintenance, base value increased by 25%, and slightly heavier population weight.
3. Civic upkeep, basically, now the low upkeep is medium upkeep before, medium upkeep is high upkeep before, and high upkeep is still a little higher.
4. Hero maintenance, 2 * levels - 1

So how should we adjust each component of it? Is there any one area that specifically need tuning?

And I do remember, I make it impossible to kick a moved legion member out of legion when you regroup legion, to prevent possible exploitation of the system. Seems don't work properly though.

 

[stmartin]

There is one more measure we could take to help solve the issue: give one tech the effect of increasing city maintenance.

Currently I picked professional army, because it's very important and everyone seems to race for it.

Now you have one reason not to get it.

 

[Kalimakhus]

The way I see the problem is: While we all want the game to be more challenging none of us want it to become unwinable.

To comment on the maintenance changes: There are positive outcomes:
1 - Smaller civs are able to survive and even pose a threat because the larger ones no longer can maintain the overwhelming advantage both in technology and troops number while expanding all in the same time.
2 - Advancement through the techtree is noticeably slower now. The human player no longer can be both a tech-monger and a warmonger so the status when you are one units' tire ahead of everybody and you just walk through cities is no longer possible. This means that the effective game time has become longer. (Effective game time is the time when you still need to attend to every aspect of gameplay to actually win the game. Previously at some time you wouldn't need to manage your cities or even care for what they build and all you need to do is move your SoD to the next kill point).

Now on the negative side:
1 - High costs hit bad and early almost wiping out whatever advantage some civs have as intended. Civs that start in war with some units pay a very high price and may never recover. In my game Cao Cao was a miss and eventually he voluntarily became my vassal and handed me the emperor!! Liu Zhang was doing fine but seemingly because he never took a single city from Zhang Lu and he just stayed in his homeland teching indefinitely. Eventually he has become my vassal voluntarily!! Liu Biao was so pathetic and I crushed him so easily. In short large civs are in a bad shape except for Yuan Shao. (He is a case worthy of study, he is quite advanced (3 techs ahead of me), and he maintains an army that was equal to my own most of the time).
2 - There is a possibility of the game becoming stagnant at some stage., with the human player (aiming for conquest) is unable to finish the game. I still need to explore this possibility in my current game.

Conclusion.
1 - Considering the points in stmartin post. We might try lowering the City maintenance just a little and lose the extra weight for population. The idea of connecting the higher maintenance value to a tech is quite good. Civics up keep and Heroes maintenance are ok. At some point they are not such a big factor.
2 - I think a higher research costs are still a good solution. They work against both the human player and the AI.
3 - Higher units maintenance (especially for elite late-game units) is also a good alternative for higher maintenance. They should force the player into managing his cities well late in the game to be able to build more troops and to eventually obtain victory.

 

[Shiggs713]

Really I agree with your entire conclusion Kalimakhus.

- Legion maintenance is fine for now.
- maybe lighten up on city maintenance a little
- higher research cost for all
- higher unit maintenance (especially later elite units)

The WW2 1939 game already has such unit maintenance where elite units like panzer tanks and such actually cost a certain gold per turn, like sometimes up to 5 gold per turn per elite unit. I actually prefer this system as opposed to the way national units hard codes how many you can have, this way you can have however many you can afford.

 

[The_J]

The WW2 1939 game already has such unit maintenance where elite units like panzer tanks and such actually cost a certain gold per turn, like sometimes up to 5 gold per turn per elite unit. I actually prefer this system as opposed to the way national units hard codes how many you can have, this way you can have however many you can afford.

You can override the limit (look here), so the changing number of national units per tech (like someone suggested somewhere here) can be done.

 

[Kalimakhus]

I think we don't need to worry about the game getting stagnant even with the current high maintenance. Actually I am beginning to think they might be OK. Still this is Sun Ce I am playing other leaders might suffer with different degrees. I think I am nearing my conquest victory. I've got 6 alive rivals 4 of them are my vassals including the mighty Yuan Shao. Of the two vassals he used to have Ma Teng capitulated (without fighting). Gongsun Du however wouldn't capitulate so I still need to go get one of his two cities (Most probably Cao Cao will do this for me). Meng Huo is still alive as well. (Can't see the point of having this guy around).

Anyway, with the many gold producing buildings I am able to maintain a research of 60% and culture of 10% (the WW is so high). I am first in GNP but not the most advanced. I am still away from completing the techtree. It is almost certain now that I will get my victory before completing it which is the way it should be for conquest victories, so I consider this a clear positive effect of recent changes.

Edit: I've just finished my Sun Ce game (Smallest map - Monarch - Epic). I got a domination victory . The smallest map being more compact makes domination quite valid. Now that I know it I think I would have got it a little earlier if I kept every city I conquered. Most of the time I gave cities to my two vassals Cao Cao and Liu Zhang. Only with Yuan Shao's cities I decided not to give up any of them. I started to be worried about one or both of my vassals breaking away. They got quite large and strong under my protection. I should also confess that they helped me a lot. .

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Yeah, the smaller map is quite possible with domination. I came to that conclusion right before I finished my Yuan Shao game (was 45%) before the new version came out with the maintenance inflation, and it wasn't backwards compatible.

 

[Kalimakhus]

I started a game with Liu Zhang. (Smallest map, Monarch, Epic). I should confess that his is a so difficult start. Basically you start with city maintenance that is so high that you need to micromanage the tiles worked for each city only to cover the expenses while setting research to 0%. Getting out of this situation is possible. It does need a lot of labor while staying really focused. Such is acceptable on Monarch and higher though if the case is similar say on Noble then it wouldn't be acceptable.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Is Unification too overpowered? I find having a free specialist is so unfair to the other beliefs because it provides great people eventually. Pure Force, for example, gives some espionage, but techs are so expensive that it's almost impossible to steal any techs. And because Unification is usually situated in food-rich places, it's like a snowball (you save more food AND get more specialists), whereas Division is usually in food-poor places (trade routes are usually less lucrative anyway, and having 15% more defense in Wu Wei isn't really a useful attribute).
As Gongsun Zan I finally got Unification spread to me (208) and I'm furiously building advocates to spread it around. Yuan Shao has already declared war on me again and I just beat him back. Got to get a defensive pact with Cao Cao soon...

 

[Shiggs713]

now that you mention it, it probably is, or at least a few of the others are just a little too weak. I'd have to play more civs that I haven't tried yet to really tell for sure. So I guess I'll go do that.....

 

[Rod]

I think Legions are overpowered.

As Cao Cao I managed to get 7 heroes with 5 of them with A or even S in their respective domain in only 30 turns from start.

So I running around with Basic strength 7-Catapults that have City Raider 3 and + 50% from Elite Siege, with Basic 9 Swift Riders + 40 % Elite + the other boni, with 7/8 Axemen/Swordsmen + ...

you get the picture.

All this in first 30 turns. (on normal speed)

 

[ono-neko]

I quite agree with Rod. I played Liu Bei, and got Guan Yu, who is my main attacker, with about 150 XP (max'ed Melee and Attack, with some additional promotions, not to mention the normal promotions for each units). I assigned 5 Xiandeng Swordmen to him, and all the upgrades, Guan Yu can run around China causing havoc and still survive. This legions can attack a city with 100%+ cultural defense toe-to-toe, so my main attacker don't really even need much of catapults.

Later on, I got Zhang Liao, got him fully promoted for Raider and Attack as well. He becomes the invincible cavalry for me doing what horses doing best. Running around picking a fight with anyone who dares to go out of their cities. Sometimes I even use his legion to raid cities!

 

[Kalimakhus]

It is actually desirable that (civ + belief + map start + starting heroes) constitute different difficulty/challenge level. It is also good that for some civs a victory type could be almost impossible. Gives you a chance to have quite a challenge if you still try to get this victory type with it anyway, or a chance to try working for some victory type unusual for you. Something a liked about AP write-ups about his cultural victories was that I myself won't play toward cultural victory. I felt that this is something I would like to try.

Heroes are the same some civs start with many (what they have + what they almost certainly capture in the early turns). Some civs start with none and have a little chance to hire any so they would either live with it or try to capture some from powerful civs. It is not like heroes can't be beaten. If met with overwhelming numbers or in unfavorable situation they will be killed. Melee legions (Usually swords) are venerable to well promoted cavalry in the open field. They are also in quite a dire situation if caught inside cities, especially a city they have just captured that still lack defenses of any sort.

In conclusion let's not miss with what is really good in this mod (Variety = Endless Replayability).

 

[Dknight99]

It is actually desirable that (civ + belief + map start + starting heroes) constitute different difficulty/challenge level. It is also good that for some civs a victory type could be almost impossible. Gives you a chance to have quite a challenge if you still try to get this victory type with it anyway, or a chance to try working for some victory type unusual for you. Something a liked about AP write-ups about his cultural victories was that I myself won't play toward cultural victory. I felt that this is something I would like to try.

Heroes are the same some civs start with many (what they have + what they almost certainly capture in the early turns). Some civs start with none and have a little chance to hire any so they would either live with it or try to capture some from powerful civs. It is not like heroes can't be beaten. If met with overwhelming numbers or in unfavorable situation they will be killed. Melee legions (Usually swords) are venerable to well promoted cavalry in the open field. They are also in quite a dire situation if caught inside cities, especially a city they have just captured that still lack defenses of any sort.

In conclusion let's not miss with what is really good in this mod (Variety = Endless Replayability).

I really the legions as it is now and I feel that they're only as powerful as you level them up. I think as new heroes are added and later heroes added down the path so that other factions have a chance to recruit them then it'll be more even. I also think setting heroes to die of natural causes after a while would be good too so that my 400 XP Guan Yu doesn't dominate the whole game and that I have to start out using his sons (who are not as powerful) to come into the game

 

[Shiggs713]

Zhang Yangs "nomadic camps" take forever to spawn new ones now with patch B.

I was playing a Zhang Yang campaign with patch A, but then it started crashing and when I updated to patch B it wouldn't let me load it up, so I started a new one with him.

In the patch A game I had so many nomadic camps I couldn't even use them all after a while.... it took a long time to get to that point, but the spawn rate seemed reasonable... perhaps just a little too fast.

In the patch B game, I was actually just about to report a bug that they don't work anymore, but I said, well lets give it till turn 100 and then report. Finally on turn 98 I spawned my first new one! Maybe now with two on sheep I'll get more soon.

Maybe it is a little too harsh now or maybe I just had two extremes of lucky... not sure.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I still think the settler option should be turned on after a certain tech by default.

Right now, small civs cannot build despite plenty of land around (Shi Xie who I'm playing has plenty of land to expand NE and NW), and other civs are too far away to conquer. Meng Huo did send a stack of 10 troops to me but they were promptly killed, and it must have taken him forever to come to my place. Most national wonders require 8 cities and there's no way that Ma Teng, Han Sui or Wang Lang can get there without building cities.

 

[Kenjister]

A simple little suggestion here: The AI should priorities troop constuction a bit more, especially in the early stage. They currently don't build much troops until they complete most of thier buildings, leading to very easy conquests and no stacks worth mentioning if you strike early. Later on they tend to build more fine.

That might create a problem though with early stagnation (due to troops built with food) so it would be nice if there was an early civic that didn't have the troops built with food tag.

 

[admtanaka]

Some minor issues I've noticed:

1. The AI's use of legions is...suboptimal. I was attacking a city where the AI had Guan Yu stationed, and he was assigned in a floor galley unit instead of the city garrison.

2. Although I've only played a few games, AI Cao Cao and Yuan Shao aren't as agressive as I'd imagined they'd be, especially towards one another. I'd like to see the two of them fight it out a little more. Maybe the AI in general should be more willing to bribe/be bribed/fight on multiple fronts at once?

3. Maybe possessing the emperor should be a little more powerful? I'm not sure how to implement this, but maybe more frequent AP votes (and more options). Also, what does "demand a hostage from x" do?

Having said all this, this is a great mod. I've been playing it whenever I get a chance, and I appreciate all the work the team put into it.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The AI does not seem to be aware that cavalry is much more expensive if you don't have a horse around the city. Maybe it should take into account that if the unit takes too long to build it shouldn't enable it unless production exceeds a certain limit.