[C3C] Conquests of Might and Magic III (CoMM3 Epic)

[boho]

Some more thoughts: I think the mod really struggles with its early game (T1-T3 units) balance. Considering the expansion phase of Civ3 is by far the most important part of the game, the fact that unit power can vary so wildly during this window of time is downright punitive to some towns.

I've noticed the same towns keep coming out ahead in the game: namely Rampart, Fortress, and Castle, while some towns just can't seem to catch a break: namely Necropolis and Conflux. It's no small coincidence these are the towns with the best - and worst - T1 and T2 units, respectively.

Castle is strong across the board, with its first (and only) "bad" unit being at Tier 5 - so probably 200 turns into a game or more. Fortress is Castle but with a Defense focus, meaning you'll have more Veteran units and Heroes, magnifying that Defense even more. Rampart has the best attacker in T1 and second-best Defender in Tier 2.

Conflux is absolutely pathetic til Tier 2, where it gets a powerhouse unit... which costs twice as much as everybody else's T2. Two Lizardmen Warriors, Marksmen, or Dwarves will usually win that trade, as will 3-4 T1 units from those towns - all of which are the same shield cost.

Necropolis breaks my heart since it's what brought me to the Heroes series to begin with. To be brief, the -1 HP on Skeletons is just too devastating, turning the 6/6 into something more like a 4/5 in the simulator despite costing as much as the 6/5, 4/6, or 6/3/+1 Move. This gets even worse if you make the mistake of unlocking Necromancy, which promises hordes of skeletons but only makes them cost as much as T2 units. Zombies have the opposite problem: they're +1 HP, +2 upgraded, but only 5/5. That's a whole lot of whiffs. It's not til Tier 4 and Vampires that Necropolis seems to show signs of (un)life.

Anyway. I've implemented the no trech trading for Creatures and Creature Upgrade techs, which helped, but I feel like the early game needs tweaking.

 

[boho]

Ok, spitballing some balance stuff:

Necropolis

Skeletons seem tuned to the Heroes 3 standard of getting Skeletons after any victorious combat, not just combats where other Skeletons are victorious. That isn't an option in Civ3 since Enslavement is a by-unit ability. While I'm tempted to remove the HP penalty with Necromancy (since Necromancy kind of sucks as-is), a 6/6 with no HP mod would make Skeleton Warrior Necros the best Tier 1 in the game, which is too much of a swing.

What if Raised Skeletons (the product of Necromancy) lost the HP penalty instead? You'd get a 5/4 that can create more of itself with a 33% chance of doing so per victory, but it's locked behind an extra tech, still outclassed by other fully-upgraded T1s, and can't be directed produced. The 4 Defense means fortifying them in a great defense tile wouldn't make them wildly strong to print units either.

I'm not sure if Zombies need to be touched with this change. They're great walls for the enemy to break themselves on, allowing the buffed skeletons to get killing blows and hopefully Enslaves. While that's already the Necropolis early game design, it's not really working right now due to the current fragility of the skeleton snowball.

Conflux

This one's tougher. Pixies need help - they're basically enslavement and XP pinatas right now and really only serve to help the enemy. They're incredibly cheap, but excess production is wasted in Civ3 - and I don't think many players are willing to min-max it for Pixies.

I'm thinking about giving them a 1 Bombard attack (Range 1, ROF 1). They're still fragile as hell, but this at least lets them "kite" the enemy around like their big sister Sprites can right out of the gate, and bloody the nose of most un-upgraded T1s. The AI probably can't use them, but honestly Pixies defend their cities by heaping their corpses in front of the gates anyway.

Sprites are a bit more of a challenge. They're still cheap, and 2 Bombard is a notable upgrade, but the AI still can't really use them. I see two routes: remove the -1 HP or bump their Defense Str to 3. Due to the low Defense value, the bump to 3 Defense is possibly stronger than an extra HP due to how Defense modifiers work. They still employ the corpse wall strategy (I envision the wall of corpses from 300, except it's fairies), but at least they might kill something before it produces a free Hero unit.

The Air/Storm elementals are probably just overpriced. Instead of 2x the cost of another city's T2 unit, I'm thinking closer to 1.75x. That turns the 2:1 into more like a 3:2 in situations where Conflux can rapidly reinforce and regroup.

"Overpowered" Towns

To be brief, I don't really want to nerf anything stat-wise. COMM3 Castle is accurate to HOMM3 Castle and I love that. The only place I'd consider tuning things down (or, rather, up) is in unit price, to more accurately reflect how HOMM3 approached balance. For instance, Griffins are remarkably plentiful. They were quite strong in HOMM3 as well, but you weren't exactly rolling in them like Castle can in COMM3. Their price may need to be turned up, as well as the number of turns between free spawns.

edit: After a couple more games I think some gentle tuning on Castle's T1 is inevitable. Pikemen are 4/5 and Halberdiers are 6/5. I'll likely be tuning them down to 4/4 and 5/5 to see if Castle continues to run away with every game.

Also, personal preference, but it's counter-intuitive and hurts my brain to see Sand (Desert), Swamp, and Marsh have equal or higher defense than Rough (Hills) or Forest. With the high defense values, penalty terrain needs to, well, be penalty terrain. I'd also like to see mountains become impassable for anything but Workers and Scouts until a road is on them to increase their strategic and tactical value, but idk if that's possible in Civ3.

 

[boho]

Anybody know how Tom got the game options to be uneditable when creating a new game?

 

[tjs282]

I'd also like to see mountains become impassable for anything but Workers and Scouts until a road is on them to increase their strategic and tactical value, but idk if that's possible in Civ3.

The brute-force approach here would be to make Mountains "Impassable to Wheeled" (as they already are in the epic-game), and then give every unit the "Wheeled" flag except the Workers and Scouts.

 

[boho]

The brute-force approach here would be to make Mountains "Impassable to Wheeled" (as they already are in the epic-game), and then give every unit the "Wheeled" flag except the Workers and Scouts.

Awesome, thanks. I got a great map with some really cool valley choke points that was foiled by the fact you can wander right over mountains with zero effort (and indeed are actually at a massive advantage when you do so as you enjoy a 40% defender bonus).

 

[Civinator]

Anybody know how Tom got the game options to be uneditable when creating a new game?

In the Scenario Properties register he disabled the Default Victory Conditions and the Default Game Rules boxes.

 

[register]

@Civinator

Downloaded this mod over the weekend to check any interesting features I could add to my mod and noticed that if you pick Tower civ for instance, it has unique type of government assigned to it, which is forced to use at the start of a first turn.
Do you know where in editor is that option which allows me to do that?

 

[Arexander]

That's part of their unique techs that they all start with, they can only use the government if they have the tech, and the techs are assigned to the civs as starting techs in the editor. Though you also need to set them to be non-tradable so the techs stay unique.

 

[boho]

Is there any good way to diagnose crashes in Civ3? I've got a decent game going but it started to get unstable around turn 220. Standard size map so I can't imagine it's any limit being hit.

 

[register]

That's part of their unique techs that they all start with, they can only use the government if they have the tech, and the techs are assigned to the civs as starting techs in the editor. Though you also need to set them to be non-tradable so the techs stay unique.

I have that, at the start unique techs are assigned to civs but I have to call for revolution to be able to run unique government.

 

[boho]

I think tech cost (and research time) may need to be reduced. So far every game I’ve finished has ended with level 4 upgraded creatures at most. I don’t want to stretch out Domination longer since 30% of the world’s terrain and population is more than enough to turn the rest of the map into cleanup anyway.

Right now it’s at an awkward spot where matches are ending pretty much precisely when they should (since past 30% it just gets exponentially more difficult to manage), but simultaneously half the mod is never seen as a result.

 

[Civinator]

I have that, at the start unique techs are assigned to civs but I have to call for revolution to be able to run unique government.

In this mod all civs are starting in Anarchy, as Anarchy here is additionally set as default government type. With this setting no "call for revolution" is needed.

 

[register]

Cheers