Éa III, Sword & Sorcery (early versions) Balance Discussion

[Pazyryk]

OK, you all are the guinea pigs. Almost all of the existing balance (if I dare say there is any) is based on guesses, some theoretical calculations, or observation of autoplay. None of that substitutes for real game play.

 

[Killzerslaul]

2 things that bother me right now:


-tech tree is too big. eg. there's techs like Weaving, Irrigation etc. that serve too small individual functions and would benefit from being mashed together. There's also a vast quantity of magic techs; personally I feel it'd be better to move spell progression somewhere else.

-Great People are really unexciting. Assigning promotions is a mundane, repetitive choice and generally your best bet is to level a GP as high as possible in one area, meaning you make a single decision at the beginning of the GP's life and don't really change it.
The importance of passive XP is kind of unexciting. I want to make my GPs awesome by making them do stuff.

This next bit is more of a suggestion than a balance change. Better to put it here than clutter the place up with another thread? ^^

• Remove passive XP. It's boring and reduces the value of the active XP rewards. You should get XP for doing stuff!
• Develop sources of active XP. Writing tomes and building wonders is a good start. Maybe you could introduce some more, for some kind of ruins that Sage can explore for XP Archaeologist style. Maybe add some risk/reward options eg. Druid going on a Spirit Journey in a forest at the risk of losing their mind or a Sorcerer summoning a demon for forbidden knowledge with the risk of losing control.
• Separate learning spells from promotions because that doesn't fit with the decreasing rate of level-ups as a unit gets higher level... my most powerful thaumaturge should not be the one who has the most trouble learning spells. Make it cost mana or take a certain number of turns to learn a spell if you want to limit the number of spells each GP has.
• Turn Promotions back to a more Perk-like form performing interesting and unique functions. eg. "Rapid Cast" would give +25% cast rate, "Magic Carpet" would give +1 moves and ignore terrain costs, "Expert Healer" would act like the Medic promotion.
  Choosing between these would be more fun than adding attribute buffs.
• Increase attributes/modifiers separately from level. My suggested system; every turn, each GP has a percentage chance of (20*level)/[highest modifier] to increase a modifier of the player's choice. This makes passive XP unnecessary by making levels no longer necessary to produce decent GPs, yet still directly rewards a GP for the levels they have earned with active XP with an increase to the rate they gain modifiers. Since the rate is only reduced by the highest modifier the player is encouraged to develop a range of abilities for their casters instead of stacking one modifier as hard as possible.
• Leadership mod should no longer be a thing because it encourages further specialisation of GPs into boring single use units instead of putting some thought into how to make optimal use of any GP at a given moment. Maybe a GP could give a bonus that is defined by and scaled to their highest mod at the current time?

 

[Sezneg]

2 things that bother me right now:


-tech tree is too big. eg. there's techs like Weaving, Irrigation etc. that serve too small individual functions and would benefit from being mashed together. There's also a vast quantity of magic techs; personally I feel it'd be better to move spell progression somewhere else.

-Great People are really unexciting. Assigning promotions is a mundane, repetitive choice and generally your best bet is to level a GP as high as possible in one area, meaning you make a single decision at the beginning of the GP's life and don't really change it.
The importance of passive XP is kind of unexciting. I want to make my GPs awesome by making them do stuff.

This next bit is more of a suggestion than a balance change. Better to put it here than clutter the place up with another thread? ^^

• Remove passive XP. It's boring and reduces the value of the active XP rewards. You should get XP for doing stuff!
• Develop sources of active XP. Writing tomes and building wonders is a good start. Maybe you could introduce some more, for some kind of ruins that Sage can explore for XP Archaeologist style. Maybe add some risk/reward options eg. Druid going on a Spirit Journey in a forest at the risk of losing their mind or a Sorcerer summoning a demon for forbidden knowledge with the risk of losing control.
• Separate learning spells from promotions because that doesn't fit with the decreasing rate of level-ups as a unit gets higher level... my most powerful thaumaturge should not be the one who has the most trouble learning spells. Make it cost mana or take a certain number of turns to learn a spell if you want to limit the number of spells each GP has.
• Turn Promotions back to a more Perk-like form performing interesting and unique functions. eg. "Rapid Cast" would give +25% cast rate, "Magic Carpet" would give +1 moves and ignore terrain costs, "Expert Healer" would act like the Medic promotion.
  Choosing between these would be more fun than adding attribute buffs.
• Increase attributes/modifiers separately from level. My suggested system; every turn, each GP has a percentage chance of (20*level)/[highest modifier] to increase a modifier of the player's choice. This makes passive XP unnecessary by making levels no longer necessary to produce decent GPs, yet still directly rewards a GP for the levels they have earned with active XP with an increase to the rate they gain modifiers. Since the rate is only reduced by the highest modifier the player is encouraged to develop a range of abilities for their casters instead of stacking one modifier as hard as possible.
• Leadership mod should no longer be a thing because it encourages further specialisation of GPs into boring single use units instead of putting some thought into how to make optimal use of any GP at a given moment. Maybe a GP could give a bonus that is defined by and scaled to their highest mod at the current time?

Some good observation here.

Also; learning a spell could be an action that is performed. Good opportunity to earn some exp.

 

[Daft73]

So far I have enjoyed the experience..I have put a good amount of time into versions 2 and 3.
1:

Some notes I can think of...I like the different uses of GP..it adds a little to the gameplay. What I did not care for was the fact that my Civ was suffering because the GP are counted as military units..which is fine and all, but there really is not a way (that I noticed) to mitigate the fact that my civ was suffering a production setback. I had 2 warriors to hold down the fort, and the rest of my military allotment filled with GP. Possibly a way to use them in a way similar to Vanilla..burn them off for a tech, add them to city production ect. Otherwise I enjoy their new use in the game.
​

2:

Happiness was a slight issue as well. I started off with 0 happiness, I was also playing the game on prince difficulty..I can only imagine how difficult it would be to take away the bonuses I had to begin with(+5 bonus on prince)...so starting at -5 happy is rough to say the least. If this is working as intended them so be it, but getting the happiness to raise is quite the task.​

That's all the "bad" I can think of..or at least the things that made me go huh..ok. Outside of the graphical duplicates, and obvious things like the Civopedia.
As I stated in the beginning of this post, I enjoy the overall feel of the mod..well done. Especially when the barbarians made peace with me...though I was not sure why they went to a peace treaty.

It's a pretty big departure from Vanilla Civ...and that is refreshing.
Thank you for all your time and such Pazyryk.

EDIT: oook...well I went foruming and found this hotfix, for the happiness will give it a go.

 

[BrokenSky]

From what I've played so far:

1. I actually like the "Increase attributes/modifiers separately from level..." Killzerslaul suggested, but for the actual formula I would probably recomend something maybe using (Constant*level)/((Sum[(attribute^2)])^0.5) type thing, so that heavily specialising is slowing to your rate of attribute gain but having a completely uniform-wide attribute system is also more slow to improve than someone who just has one attribute of the same level (as that person has for all attributes).

The Mini-quest things I think you were maybe going to implement could also give rewards of attributes.

2. Obviously more spells are needed, but I would also suggest adding a couple of tech for unlocking possibly cross-disipline spells. Maybe also make some spells 'upgraded' which require knowing the lower level version of the spell to research.

There aren't many epics at the moment as far as I'm aware. In my first game as Noudont I was able to build every single one pretty quickly with my starting GP and get some pretty powerful bonuses by the end because of the 100 xp -> Barding skill. bonus every time I completed one.
I would recommend adding some "generic" epics which are related to recent events and/or politics in your and neighbouring civs, and possibly make the action simply "craft epic" which gives you an epic with a name randomly assigned based on culture (Race and maybe some civs in different groups?) and local circumstance (I made some suggestion previously about epics which were things like "the sacking of [recently conquered city]") and a bonus based on circumstances such as your researched techs, open policy branches and some actual policies, your dominant religion, your leader and various other small things like whether you're at war or not.

3. I like the size of the tech tree as it is though. Combining things might be useful in magic where there are a lot of techs, but honestly I'd prefer to see everything else become less combined and just get techs more often so I don't have to research a tech for one of the bonuses it gives, when I'm never going to use the other. Possibly make it so if you conquer a city from a civ with a tech you don't have, but can research, you have a chance of gaining it?

4. Oh yeah, there is the problem with having too many GP counting against unit supply - I had that too. Maybe make them exempt? otherwise maybe make supply simply add a % negative to GP production, unit production and nothing else?

 

[Scamps]

A couple of random observations:

1. Trade routes give tech. Well, half of my 70 came from four trade routes AI established to my cities. Should be removed entirely IMHO. If you decide to leave it, double ckeck that KM applies to that bonus.

2. Food is everything: science, production and gold come from population. Maybe move production/gold from general population to unemployed citizens? Food will still remain the most important resource.
2b. With fixed 150/, cities grow exponentially faster. Starting food resources become EXTREMELY important in early game. Probably cost of a citizen should increase with population (at least to some extent).
2c. Health is barely important at the moment. A well developed city would restore dead population in no time (did not play with armageddon yet). Still seems more or less balanced.

 

[JWSIII]

I personally found the health mechanic (especially later, when it would take up to 3 population) to do the job fine of restricting population growth.

I like the tech tree in general, my issue is that some areas (mining) give alot, whereas some (weaving) give only very specific bonuses.

The unit cap was a problem, although it becomes less of one as time goes on, it is a bottleneck right before you'd found a second city imo.

there seems to be a huge preference for getting your GP and name fast; waiting for a tier-2 tech takes about twice as long (assuming at least one village gives culture) as a tier-2 policy, and waiting for improvements takes even longer, so certain civilization names are hugely more valuable... because most GP's can start crafting unique things the second they are born, so getting to them early is huge, making even nice later names not worth the wait.

I haven't been able to get past founding my second city more than 20 turns, so beyond what I just mentioned, I have little to add to balance

 

[Pazyryk]

I'll go back and read this more carefully (when I'm not on vacation ). Just some things that struck me:

• Yeah, we should not have GPs counting against "unit supply". I always forget about that mechanic. @ls612, this might require dll change (I think Lua/xml only lets us set maintenance, which is already 0).
• I had not even though about the idea of having Learn Spell be an action. It's a good idea I think -- the cost is there (time) so you do have to pay a price. How many turns?
• I was thinking maybe of re-working the Civ5 xp/level progression. It get's so steep. I was trying to get around this with things like passive xp (which doesn't really do that; instead it just gives you some early random level-ups) and really massive amounts of xp for higher power spells. But maybe instead I should just adjust xp reqs for level up. Or maybe that's not needed if spell learning become an action?

 

[BrokenSky]

Spell learn time:
Depends on spell difficulty. e.g. magic missile ~ 4 turns basic, with a time reduction if done in a city with spell time reducing buildings (mage school type thing), to a minimum of one. Being in a city at all reduces the time cost by 1. If you are the first thaumaturge of your civ to learn an arcane spell, it takes twice as long (researching it). [before or after modifiers?]

Xp/levels
I think that If we take attribute bonuses (including school levels for magic users) then we need neither an xp/level ajustment or passive xp gain, but we'd need what is essentially a second leveling system, although one without xp. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to do.

 

[Daft73]

[*]I was thinking maybe of re-working the Civ5 xp/level progression. It get's so steep. I was trying to get around this with things like passive xp (which doesn't really do that; instead it just gives you some early random level-ups) and really massive amounts of xp for higher power spells. But maybe instead I should just adjust xp reqs for level up. Or maybe that's not needed if spell learning become an action?

I have used a mod that had a system possibly worth checking. The short..as you level you can choose either to pick a direct upgrade (ei. bonus to hill attk/def), or tier up to level 2 and so on. Each tier has unique upgrades, up to 4. As you tier, so does your xp per action (fight/kill unit).

Might be worth a look. Enjoying the game.

 

[BrokenSky]

This is more of a suggestion than a balance issue, but could you add a canals improvement to either irrigation, sailing or a new tech which requires both? Canals allow ship movement, and if possible naval trade routes and city connection via water along them. Maybe slows unit movement across them unless you have a canal/road with the bridge building tech (I can't remember which one it is off the top of my head). It's kinda irritating to go all out sea civ, only to find that your Mediterranean isn't actually connected to any major ocean .

Also watchtower type thing which increases the Line of Sight of a unit on the tile might be nice.

 

[jekke]

1) barbarians are very strong in the beginning. I have to build a couple of warriors (and give them defence promotion) just to protect my worker(s) and improvements around my capital, which basically means limited early exploration. It's much more difficult to clear barb camps, because they also heal. So basically, it takes two warriors and a healer to clear one camp. A camp of wildmen, I mean, not ogres - forget about them. Now, if there are two camps nearby...
Am I doing something wrong? how do you guys deal with barbs?

2) sometimes I don't know what to build in my capital. In a normal Civ there's never such a problem: you start with scout, can invest smth into an (expensive) worker, then come granary and shrine, both useful, and there's always a monument, etc. Now monument is cheap, scouts require hunting tech and are not so great without the ignore terrain feature, and workers are also much cheaper. I end up building quite a few warriors simply because there's nothing else to do and I don't want to start a settler before size, hm, three of four. in the meanwhile you can't research cool techs with cool buildings because you need basic techs for the improvements!

3) the most valuable resource seems to be Yew. If you have enough of it, you can pump out marksmen and kill everything pretty much when others are still fighting with archers.

4) also, I almost stop building infantry units one I get tech of ranged units. Any advantages of warriors over archers (or infantry over marksmen), other than defensive promotion?

 

[Daft73]

1) barbarians are very strong in the beginning. I have to build a couple of warriors (and give them defence promotion) just to protect my worker(s) and improvements around my capital, which basically means limited early exploration. It's much more difficult to clear barb camps, because they also heal. So basically, it takes two warriors and a healer to clear one camp. A camp of wildmen, I mean, not ogres - forget about them. Now, if there are two camps nearby...
Am I doing something wrong? how do you guys deal with barbs?

Well, as far as barbs go...I just farm them. I'll post up a couple of guards around my improved tiles (worker built, others seem immune to barbs) and just defend. Seems to work fine. In the case that they get a little to rough I'll send the 2 warriors with a Great Warrior to lead the charge. His/her attack + the 2 warriors is plenty to wipe a barb camp in no time at all.

A question I have is about Natural wonders, they still give up the global happiness..but no working the tile bonus Are these still a work in progress. Below my first town near a natural wonder

Spoiler :

OK, well this is interesting. The natural wonder gave access to the god of similar name..in this case Aveta, starts as neutral. Is this going to be the only bonus?..nice concept though.

Spoiler :

 

[Pazyryk]

NWs will have yield too, and some will have other effects - just haven't gotten to that yet.

On barbs, yes, they will be overwhelming if you don't train some some military (more than your free warrior). I also want them to last a little longer into the game.

The infantry units have a 30% bonus against cities. An archer should be roughly comparable to (maybe just a little bit better than) a light infantry. Light infantry should win in open ground; archer should win if they are fighting from good terrain. Let me know if that's not the case. And don't assume anything from the stats (there's a global ranged strength modifier that was adjusted by the expansions and I used the earlier weaker values).

I think it was mentioned above somewhere: I am worried about too much production. The reason I gave +1p per citizen is that I was worried about too little production in the case where you have a medium sized city that is not working any production plots (which is more likely in Éa than base). It's also another benefit for ag/growth-focused civs driving up city population. I could drive up the production cost of everything, but then that leads to really slow progress early.

 

[Thelo]

It seems that if you choose the Arcana social policies early, you end up with Great People (Wizard, Witch...) that are incapable of actually doing anything until you research arcane-specific techs. That is, they can't cast any spells until you research Maleficium or Thaumaturgy.

Is this really intended? It feels pretty lame to have these useless Wizards and Witches around that can't do anything Wizardy or Witchy for a long time.

 

[Pazyryk]

It seems that if you choose the Arcana social policies early, you end up with Great People (Wizard, Witch...) that are incapable of actually doing anything until you research arcane-specific techs. That is, they can't cast any spells until you research Maleficium or Thaumaturgy.

Without Thaumaturgy or Sorcery or Necromancy you should only get Witches. There are supposed to be about 5 or 6 reasonably useful spells they can learn without techs ("witchcraft spells") but unfortunately I think only 1 or 2 are in right now.

And there are >10 additional spells still to be added to fill out the empty magic techs.

 

[Thelo]

Without Thaumaturgy or Sorcery or Necromancy you should only get Witches. There are supposed to be about 5 or 6 reasonably useful spells they can learn without techs ("witchcraft spells") but unfortunately I think only 1 or 2 are in right now.

And there are >10 additional spells still to be added to fill out the empty magic techs.

1 or 2? There are 0 right now, unless I'm missing something. The "Learn spell" window was completely empty.

 

[Thelo]

What is the benefit of accumulating Mana? I'm not sure I have seen even a single way to actually spend it yet. Right now, I am sitting on a pile of one thousand mana, with +52 per turn, through basically no mana-raising effort on my part and through casting spells at every chance I get with my four spellcasters (all actively engaged in war).

 

[Pazyryk]

The more powerful spells use quite a bit more mana. Spells like Become Lich or the stronger summon/call type spells. If these aren't using up your mana, then I need to do some balancing.

Hex is the only witchcraft spell now, and it is free for Witches.

 

[JWSIII]

I wanted to know; the "fellowship of leaves" social policy says druids can build a temple, but the temples to the gods start much earlier (whenever you found a specific cult of pantheism). Are those temples supposed to be like wizards towers for druids?