knightpraetor
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2007
- Messages
- 14
This may prove to be a long post, but i decided i should ask for people's opinions on multiplayer balance and the current tier list.
Balance in FFH2 tends to be along the lines of giving ridiculously powerful strats to most of the races, but I was wondering what options everyone plays with/ thinks would be the most balanced for a multiplayer game.
To me, multiplayer balance is far more important than the rest of the game mechanics, because it is not fun for a player to be playing a race that can't compete with comps and will get owned by the other players as their warriors attempt to defend against a flood of str 5 or 8 units. However, multiplayer balance in this game, as in most games i've played, has a set of tiers, due to the near impossibility of balancing all races equally (which is made even harder due to the differentiation in map types..as well as the luck of the spawn location).
So far, the options we have been using, are slower xp (to strengthen non-financial/philosophical...although with slower xp charismatic seeems really strong..ultimately, teching is more important in mp games and so the econ traits are not really hurt that much, while the military traits are buffed) with no tech trading on emperor difficulty or monarch depending on our mood.
On monarch usually all or most of the human players easily surpass the comps even in the early game (turn 100-150), while on emperor only one player will tend to be surpassing all computers, while the rest will be near the top (usually this means one player got a great start location.)
Anyways, we turned off the dungeon mechanic because one player popping a great person or extra axemen pretty much places them at the top of the game immediately and will mean the other players will be royally owned...early techs count so much.. bulbing is very powerful without finding a great person...
Events we have been leaving turned on...but we had one game in which all the other players got owned by an early golden age event...who all gets events..I'm curious how balanced it is..i know some of them are down religious trees..so i don't really mind...but illians just pop it at the get-go..
Anyways, wonder whether people think events are roughly balanced are not..
Based on our gameplay...i have a rough idea of the tier lists.
Illians: they don't get the number one slot because they start at God tier..stasis needs a tech requirement or mp games need to set a particular turn when it's fair to cast it..recommendations on this would be nice...but yeah..against a good player, you won't catch up from stasis on turn 1.
1 and 2: elves...comps can't deal with elves... but even if we had all humans, i don't see how elves would be particularly weaker than other races...they still get the same types of units roughly at the various techs and can tech their faster...you can burn forest...but that requires a bit of tech doesn't it? burned forest regrows unless you put it out with water? No other players have been able to come close to keeping up with elves so we haven't gotten that much experience at playing with them or dealing with it...but supposedly you need to go to an early war with the elves....but i still don't think the elves are hurt any more than a normal race when you go to war with them early...because their econ will mean they can grow at least as fast and tech to the same levels as you.
3-7: Kuriates, Luchiurp, lanun, balseraph, calabim
...bals and calabim are strong militarily..luchiurp and lanun have ridiculously strong early econ mechanics to jumpstart them (and honestly early econ is far more important than any theoretical econ in a mp game)
The rest of the races seem roughly balanced in their own tier classification, except I feel that malakim and elohim seem a little weaker than the others...haven't tried the new malakim mechanic..but it doesn't sound enough to make them equal to a top tier race..but maybe do ok for the normal races.
i dont' really know how to place CoE..does their world spell actually get you more than 1 or 2 units? are you supposed to use them like the doviello by immediately swallowing another player?
Anyways, we are considering turning off unique features because of Remnants of patria..some other players said yggdrasil was just as good...what does it give? i've forgotten, though i've gotten it in many games...it's sad how many thousands of hours i've played this game...
oh obviously we have been allowing world spells...your perception of tiers would change drastically without world spells...luchiurp and calabim would drop a lot with the loss of it
we had been playing with barbs on; we used to do raging barbs, but felt that made expansion strats too impractical.
with barbs on i feel that aristocracy can compete with the cottage/city states strategy that people on the forums said was stronger. The reason being that it becomes difficult to expand to the point where cottages will surpass farms...with 3 or 4 cities aristocracy can compete outside maintenance costs i would think..mainly by getting great people with the extra food? An analysis of this would be appreciated...
oh, props to kael for increasing the unit limit for maintenance purposes..military rushes are less costly now..so maybe you can deal with that elf next to you better..though somehow i doubt it...
anyways, everyone is free to post thoughts on the tiers or balance or suggestions to help me improve balance in my mp games.
Thanks again.
Balance in FFH2 tends to be along the lines of giving ridiculously powerful strats to most of the races, but I was wondering what options everyone plays with/ thinks would be the most balanced for a multiplayer game.
To me, multiplayer balance is far more important than the rest of the game mechanics, because it is not fun for a player to be playing a race that can't compete with comps and will get owned by the other players as their warriors attempt to defend against a flood of str 5 or 8 units. However, multiplayer balance in this game, as in most games i've played, has a set of tiers, due to the near impossibility of balancing all races equally (which is made even harder due to the differentiation in map types..as well as the luck of the spawn location).
So far, the options we have been using, are slower xp (to strengthen non-financial/philosophical...although with slower xp charismatic seeems really strong..ultimately, teching is more important in mp games and so the econ traits are not really hurt that much, while the military traits are buffed) with no tech trading on emperor difficulty or monarch depending on our mood.
On monarch usually all or most of the human players easily surpass the comps even in the early game (turn 100-150), while on emperor only one player will tend to be surpassing all computers, while the rest will be near the top (usually this means one player got a great start location.)
Anyways, we turned off the dungeon mechanic because one player popping a great person or extra axemen pretty much places them at the top of the game immediately and will mean the other players will be royally owned...early techs count so much.. bulbing is very powerful without finding a great person...
Events we have been leaving turned on...but we had one game in which all the other players got owned by an early golden age event...who all gets events..I'm curious how balanced it is..i know some of them are down religious trees..so i don't really mind...but illians just pop it at the get-go..
Anyways, wonder whether people think events are roughly balanced are not..
Based on our gameplay...i have a rough idea of the tier lists.
Illians: they don't get the number one slot because they start at God tier..stasis needs a tech requirement or mp games need to set a particular turn when it's fair to cast it..recommendations on this would be nice...but yeah..against a good player, you won't catch up from stasis on turn 1.
1 and 2: elves...comps can't deal with elves... but even if we had all humans, i don't see how elves would be particularly weaker than other races...they still get the same types of units roughly at the various techs and can tech their faster...you can burn forest...but that requires a bit of tech doesn't it? burned forest regrows unless you put it out with water? No other players have been able to come close to keeping up with elves so we haven't gotten that much experience at playing with them or dealing with it...but supposedly you need to go to an early war with the elves....but i still don't think the elves are hurt any more than a normal race when you go to war with them early...because their econ will mean they can grow at least as fast and tech to the same levels as you.
3-7: Kuriates, Luchiurp, lanun, balseraph, calabim
...bals and calabim are strong militarily..luchiurp and lanun have ridiculously strong early econ mechanics to jumpstart them (and honestly early econ is far more important than any theoretical econ in a mp game)
The rest of the races seem roughly balanced in their own tier classification, except I feel that malakim and elohim seem a little weaker than the others...haven't tried the new malakim mechanic..but it doesn't sound enough to make them equal to a top tier race..but maybe do ok for the normal races.
i dont' really know how to place CoE..does their world spell actually get you more than 1 or 2 units? are you supposed to use them like the doviello by immediately swallowing another player?
Anyways, we are considering turning off unique features because of Remnants of patria..some other players said yggdrasil was just as good...what does it give? i've forgotten, though i've gotten it in many games...it's sad how many thousands of hours i've played this game...
oh obviously we have been allowing world spells...your perception of tiers would change drastically without world spells...luchiurp and calabim would drop a lot with the loss of it
we had been playing with barbs on; we used to do raging barbs, but felt that made expansion strats too impractical.
with barbs on i feel that aristocracy can compete with the cottage/city states strategy that people on the forums said was stronger. The reason being that it becomes difficult to expand to the point where cottages will surpass farms...with 3 or 4 cities aristocracy can compete outside maintenance costs i would think..mainly by getting great people with the extra food? An analysis of this would be appreciated...
oh, props to kael for increasing the unit limit for maintenance purposes..military rushes are less costly now..so maybe you can deal with that elf next to you better..though somehow i doubt it...
anyways, everyone is free to post thoughts on the tiers or balance or suggestions to help me improve balance in my mp games.
Thanks again.