FfH2 0.16 Balance Recommendations

[MrUnderhill]

how about making some buildings mutually exclusive? i.e., one cannot have a GH & a theatre in the same city.
Only problem would be if you changed your mind later there is no way to get rid of buildings now.

You could have the construction of one destroy the others if they're there. Since they'd no longer be in the city, they can be rebuilt later, destroying the one you have already. This is do-able in python, right?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

a more elegant solution than mine... provided it's in the strategy hints in Big Bold Letters!

 

[MrUnderhill]

Well, the big red warning of death is already in for improvements. I don't see why buildings would be any different.
Copy, paste, change variables, and you're done.

 

[DieselBiscuit]

how about making some buildings mutually exclusive? i.e., one cannot have a GH & a theatre in the same city.
Only problem would be if you changed your mind later there is no way to get rid of buildings now.
hmmm, a "configureable" building would be interesting... say, you build a "civic building" and can change it's function to be a theatre, gambling hall or courthouse, but not at the same time.
probably too much micromanagement, though.

Wow! I like this idea a lot! Implementing this civic building thingy isn't very difficult from a programmers perspective either. You just give everyone a free, invisible building in every city (prob. most practically done by having the palaces provide them to every city), then upon a civic change every city with such a building either gains a new building with appropriate effects (GH, Theatre etc.) or you just tack the bonus on the invisibuilding. Opens up some interesting possibilities.

On another note: The Industrious trait seems a bit underpowered after the reduction of the forge production bonus. It wasn't even very good to begin with, as the trait itself made you rely on getting the appropriate resource or else still be outproduced. Additionally, FFHs tech tree structure often reduce getting a wonder to getting the tech first, so being Financial might give you a bigger head start than Industrious can deal with. Suggestion: How about a small worker speed bonus, like 25% to make farms and plantations need one less round of improving. Btw, is this something like Industrious in vanilla Civ? I can't remember anymore

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I mostly agree on this too, except that the Religion civic is my favourite culprit for clumping happiness boni. Imagine having rushed Priesthood, which is a pretty neat strategy even with str 4 priests: Sending out that priest to found a temple in your new city will effectively raise its happycap by 4, and that's not even considering the potential boni from God King and Religious Discipline (though these may come at a pretty steep price).

I agree completely. I love running Religious Discipline also, that has to be my favorite civic. Did you see my suggestions for other temple bonuses based on the Religion civic? Something like:

Temple of the Order: +1,+1 per priest
Temple of Kilmorph: +1 per merchant, +1 per engineer
Temple of the Overlords: +2 per artist
Temple of the Veil: +2 per sage

Potentially pretty powerful, but when you consider the power that a single happy face gives, it's not so bad.

 

[DieselBiscuit]

Did you see my suggestions for other temple bonuses based on the Religion civic? Something like:

Temple of the Order: +1,+1 per priest
Temple of Kilmorph: +1 per merchant, +1 per engineer
Temple of the Overlords: +2 per artist
Temple of the Veil: +2 per sage

Potentially pretty powerful, but when you consider the power that a single happy face gives, it's not so bad.

I did both read and comment it, considering it a bit too powerful. I must admit I didn't really weigh it against the happy faces (Note to self: Fix brain ). Now that I do, it only bothers me a bit about already big cities with unlimited specialist civics; imagine a good holy city of the Veil, crown of Akharien, Scholarship and a temple of the Veil. Agares would be proud. The boni would have to be a bit more balanced (who wants to get a great bard anyway?) but the concept is nice.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Well, when you consider that each one of those citizens could be working a town tile for 5+ , which would then be put towards research, it's not so bad to have a sage grant 4 instead. Of course, there's also the factor, but, as M@ni@c so graciously points out, great people are a dwinding outcome strategy. In any case, an infinite sage economy is tougher to engineer than a cottage spam, so that must be considered, too.

 

[OzzyKP]

I think giving the missionary type units (prophets? i forget) the ability to give a 20 culture boost is too exploitable.

I played a game with that as my main tool and I eliminated multiple civs just by using those guys to take over a civ culturally. Push the border back enough to build a closer city, then start over. I had all my cities building those units and sending them to the border. It worked like a charm.

I destroyed well over a dozen enemy cities with no diplomatic penalty and no risk. Even capital cities that had been around for hundreds of turns I was able to culturally overpower within just a few turns. It was incredible.

 

[Maniac]

How many prophets did you have to use for that?

 

[RavenXL]

...and what gamespeed? Normal? Or is it the same with epic?

 

[OzzyKP]

I think it was normal.

How many prophets did you have to use for that?

A good number, but it was late in the game so I was popping them out every turn from my main cities who didn't have anything left to build besides units anyhow.

I played that civ with the big cities, so I couldn't even keep the cities I took culturally. If I was able to keep them this effect would have snowballed more.

I'll test it out in .16 with another civ and make this my focus early on.

 

[Maniac]

I'm just wondering if you couldn't have achieved the same effect by building a bunch of military units of the same hammer cost instead. For then there wouldn't be a problem at all.

 

[OzzyKP]

But there is no risk involved in culturing them to death. I didn't lose a city or an improvement or risk my security. I just eliminated all my neighbors quietly and efficiently.

 

[Kael]

But there is no risk involved in culturing them to death. I didn't lose a city or an improvement or risk my security. I just eliminated all my neighbors quietly and efficiently.

Hmm... I wonder if I shouldn't make it so it can only be done in cities below a certain culture rating? So you could use it to quickly push out some early borders, but not start combating real cities with it.

 

[OzzyKP]

That might be a good idea.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I would support such a change.

 

[DieselBiscuit]

Well, when you consider that each one of those citizens could be working a town tile for 5+ , which would then be put towards research, it's not so bad to have a sage grant 4 instead. Of course, there's also the factor, but, as M@ni@c so graciously points out, great people are a dwinding outcome strategy. In any case, an infinite sage economy is tougher to engineer than a cottage spam, so that must be considered, too.

The only arguments I have against this is that it takes more time and resources to get that town (work the plot + 70 turns), but I think your point stands anyway. The most important aspect would be limiting the potential happycap from the Religious civic, tho.

 

[Zuul]

Make the river defence higher, maybe up to 40% from 25%. This will make the amphibious promotion useful but also makes rivers more strategic.

 

[Ankhman]

Cultural expansion is my primary strategy for taking over nearby cities. I try to play a game where I don't enter into wars and have found that this strategy works although not as quickly as OzzyKP stated above; perhaps because I usually play on Epic or Marathon speeds. I see this issue as an area where the AI does not do well and would prefer to see some tweaking of the AI rather than a prevention of a strategy. Perhaps there's a way of slowing down the cultural takeover of an area as one gets closer to the city.

 

[Gamestation]

Wow, really pushing the limits with this strategy eh? Maybe this works because the AI is not prioritizing culture buildings, or does not recognize that most of the culture buildings only provide a percentage boost to the raw culture points being produced?

Question: does this strategy work against someone with OO as their state religion?