1.6 feedback

[Ahriman]

Every civ should have counter to any other civ. And vice versa.

I don't think this is coherent.

What I mean by the "every civ is overpowered" is that every civ should have powerful mechanics that make them play differently.

These mechanics need not have "counters", they are simply different measures of attaining factional strength.

For example, one faction (Ecaz) might have a great economy advantage from trade, but only mediocre military units. There doesn't need to be a "counter" to them having a trade advantage.
Another faction might have superior desert travel and raiding abilities (Fremen). Again, there doesn't have to be a specific "counter" to a desert-superiority strategy. Another faction might be very innovative, and able to easily upgrade its units up to later tiers with reduced upgrade cost (Ix, in my conception). There is no "counter" to this.
And these aren't situtational (trade, desert power, air power, unit upgrading, diplomacy, assault troops, etc. are all useful every game), though they require you to adjust your play somewhat to exploit optimally.

These are all different methods of gaining military or economic advantage. They're balanced if they're all roughly equally powerful.

Individual units can work fine on a rock/paper/scissors type design, but mechanics don't work like that.

To give some FFH examples; Sidar have an excellent specialist economy. There isn't a "counter" for that. Elves have great defensive abilities and powerful economeis from their abilitiy to build in forests; there isn't a counter to that. The Clan can rapidly build up huge armies with their Warrens; again there isn't a specific counter to that.
This works well. Its tough to balance and can require a lot of tweaking, but its an effective design philosophy of differentiation.
The single biggest weakness with vanilla civ IMO is that each faction still basically plays the same.

 

[Slvynn]

I don't think this is coherent.

What I mean by the "every civ is overpowered" is that every civ should have powerful mechanics that make them play differently.

These mechanics need not have "counters", they are simply different measures of attaining factional strength.

For example, one faction (Ecaz) might have a great economy advantage from trade, but only mediocre military units. There doesn't need to be a "counter" to them having a trade advantage.
Another faction might have superior desert travel and raiding abilities (Fremen). Again, there doesn't have to be a specific "counter" to a desert-superiority strategy. Another faction might be very innovative, and able to easily upgrade its units up to later tiers with reduced upgrade cost (Ix, in my conception). There is no "counter" to this.
And these aren't situtational (trade, desert power, air power, unit upgrading, diplomacy, assault troops, etc. are all useful every game), though they require you to adjust your play somewhat to exploit optimally.

These are all different methods of gaining military or economic advantage. They're balanced if they're all roughly equally powerful.

Individual units can work fine on a rock/paper/scissors type design, but mechanics don't work like that.

To give some FFH examples; Sidar have an excellent specialist economy. There isn't a "counter" for that. Elves have great defensive abilities and powerful economeis from their abilitiy to build in forests; there isn't a counter to that. The Clan can rapidly build up huge armies with their Warrens; again there isn't a specific counter to that.
This works well. Its tough to balance and can require a lot of tweaking, but its an effective design philosophy of differentiation.
The single biggest weakness with vanilla civ IMO is that each faction still basically plays the same.

I am not to agree with you here.
As i told once - you saying that flavor and this kind of balance i talking about are opposite - denying each other. But i say it not. It just matter of carefull preservance of ability of civs to counter each ones powrs by their own powers.
FFH is bad sample in that imo. The one thing i HATE about FFH is that its not balanced for MP. Even at glimpse. I am not playing it now. Just lost interest.
Its is a GREAT mod. Awesome. For SP. Or for RP MP only. Its mod for Roleplaying which favor flavour in price of balance.
I like games whee you can improve you skill, approach, with some sporty touch of understanding mechanics. Improving.
And i told oonce that big difference and flavour might be kept in strict tie to UU/UB/URU difference, with some restrained touch of experimental mechanics.

You can counter CE and Traderoutes of Ecaz. Poisoning of BTL. Sabotage from Ordos. Diplomacy from RM. Corrino Lazas., which are HN. Mod have this, but we should keep eye on preserving even relationships
The thing i talking about is that there is very big need of providing to every civ unique powers to combat other civs unique powers. There should be not unique powers that will be powerfull no matter what going on.
You should be able to beeline to certain tech and unlock your unique power, among many, which counter particular power of enemy circumstances.


The things are simple, but FFH have so unrestrained differecies, that its amost impossible to control not-circumstance influenced balance. In FFH civ counter civ, actually, and fireballs counter many things, and there are alot of things that simply have not counter.

did you ever played Homeworld 2? i think balance of 2 civs is perfect there, and they are really distinct.
There are lots of games which can be played just for sport outerperfoming your rival, and FFH certainly not one of those, there are no certain things in FFH.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't understand most of what you are saying here.
None of these fragments mean anything to me:

As i told once - you saying that flavor and this kind of balance are opposite - denying each other

FFH is bad sample in that imo.

I like games whee you can improve you skill, approach, with some sporty touch of understanding mechanics. Improving.

The things are simple, but FFH have so unrestrained differecies, that its amost impossible to control not-circumstance influenced balance

I really don't understand what you're trying to say here.

Also:

i think balance of 2 civs is perfect there, and they are really distinct.

2 civs are rather easier to differentiate and balance than 9. I didn't play that game though, so can't comment on details.

You can counter CE and Traderoutes of Ecaz. Poisoning of BTL. Sabotage from Ordos. Diplomacy from RM.

Umm, how? None of these things have explicit counters.
How you you "counter" a faction who has diplomacy advantages?
How do you "counter" a faction who gets trade bonuses - particuarly when you cant' really blockade them becaus every tile counts for trade route purposes?

In FFH civ counter civ, actually

I would disagree with this. What civ counters Sidar's specialist economy?
What civ counters Lanun's bonuses from water tiles?
What civ counters the Clan's warrens mechanism?

The one thing i HATE about FFH is that its not balanced for MP

I would suggest that the primary focus by far for the mod should be to create an enjoyable single player experience with factions that play differently.
I think that multiplayer balance is nice, but should not be a primary design goal.

The number of people who play mods multiplayer is very small, as a total proportion.

 

[Slvynn]

I don't understand most of what you are saying here.
None of these fragments mean anything to me:




I really don't understand what you're trying to say here.

Sorry for my english, but i think they are clear enough, just its sad you can't understand them.
FFH bad sample for balance.
There are games which have alot of flavor, yet less RP, and less "planes" of distinctiveness, with balance preserved.

Also:

2 civs are rather easier to differentiate and balance than 9. I didn't play that game though, so can't comment on details.

No, that shows that balance is possible without losing grip on flavor.

Umm, how? None of these things have explicit counters.
How you you "counter" a faction who has diplomacy advantages?
How do you "counter" a faction who gets trade bonuses - particuarly when you cant' really blockade them becaus every tile counts for trade route purposes?



I would disagree with this. What civ counters Sidar's specialist economy?
What civ counters Lanun's bonuses from water tiles?
What civ counters the Clan's warrens mechanism?

Some of things you mentioned are counterable, some should be avoided.
Diplomacy advantages - Religion spread affinity and countering it with religion bonuses.
Trade routes - Diplomacy counters it by "stop trade with certain civ" action.
Water bonuses for Lanun - thats a bad thing. One of y favorite civs in FFH, but : if they start inside continent - they are worthless, if thery start with lots of water - too powerful. Thats a dependence on circumstances, which cannot be countered. And that is wrong.

There are many ways to make civs different , but some of them should be avoided, because when number of those grow its almost imposible to control balance in the game.

I would suggest that the primary focus by far for the mod should be to create an enjoyable single player experience with factions that play differently.
I think that multiplayer balance is nice, but should not be a primary design goal.

The number of people who play mods multiplayer is very small, as a total proportion.

Disagree. It is major loss for mod if it will be not valuable MP wise. Vanilla Civ have so much people active and playing it because they going crazy on MP. Telling " we dont need that MP anyways" seems to me very over conservative and denying healthy reason fact that MP is thing that gives more lifespan of player's love to the mod. Designing from scratch is much easier than redisigning completely working system. and one of things that you didn't understood but i will tell it for others : Balance in MP and Flavor are not denying each other, they are not opposite. To preserve it we need just keep eye on what features and powers we add - and one that rely mainly on circumstances should be cut off. Not all of them(it isnt possible), but as much as possible . Then it will be simpler to control balance.

I saw alot of nice games " dead" because they had not MP/ SP balance .. No MP value.... That's a major loss.... People lost interest to play them. MP is vital extension of game lifespan. Competition. Oh that lead many people to play their games - taste of competition. You cant talk about of competition when you have lost grip on balance.
And i know some old old games which still have its fans, despite being very old. Because of MP .

To tell MP is unimportant - is to cut off more than 50% of potential players just by 3 words, sending them to play other games.

FFH is FFH , DW is not FFH, why need to be equal to FFH in flavour (you'll never be that high anyways). It can be 30% less but with 100% (50% more than FFH have) viability for competitive MP. Just by preserving "not-circumstance-influenced" balance.

I'll say you another thing - I am 100% sure, that DW will be interesting for old Dune 2 / Dune 2000 / Emperror players , and will encourage them to read the books (Psychic Llamas is great example). And sure there will be (there are already) people which never played Civ IV. The downloaded game because it remind them of Books/ Movies/ Dune series games. And those people will want to compete and play MP . As long as you give them UU/UB distinct mechanics that would be cool, but if you leave those Emperror players without MP balance - they will lose interest to the game.
The fact is that "community" of Dune theme players will be very different of "community" of Open-ended Role-play Fantasy Game.

 

[davidlallen]

I think we discussed about this a month or two ago. Slvynn's point is that FFH has gone *too far* with unique abilities. In FFH MP, it is very hard to start a game with a set of civs that are well matched so that players of equal skill each have an equal chance to win. In vanilla MP, there is little real difference between the civs, so it is very easy to start a game with a set of civs that are well matched.

Although having *highly* differentiated civs is great for single player, no mod has been able to achieve the goal of being highly differentiated and still MP-balanced. So we should aim for less differentiation than FFH but more than vanilla.

 

[Ahriman]

just its sad you can't understand them

Perhaps you could make an effort to communicate more clearly, rather than blaming *me* for not understanding you? I appreciate that its hard to communicate in non-native languages, but you need to realize that you are not easy to understand.
When I say "I do not understand X", this is not meant to be insulting, it is merely meant to point out that I did not understand what you said, so you need to try again if you wish to be understood.

Diplomacy advantages - Religion spread affinity and countering it with religion bonuses.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you spread a religion in such a way that it makes a particular foe have diplomacy penalties for being a different religion, then that foe will still have smaller penalties if they are a faction with diplomacy advantages than if they are not. So you aren't "countering" their diplomacy advantages, you're just providing a penalty that would work against any faction.

Trade routes - Diplomacy counters it by "stop trade with certain civ" action.

No it doesn't. The main reasons for the "stop trade with X" action is to stop strategic/luxury/health goods being traded with them. You will have to pay far more to try to stop people from trading with another player (and keep paying them repeatedly, since the demand only works for 10 turns - then they'll start trading again) than you will manage to reduce their trade route income by.
And even then, you'll only be able to convince your closest friends to stop trading with someone else they already don't particularly like.
You can't effectively use diplomacy to cost-effectively reduce the trade route yields of a particular player.

Water bonuses for Lanun - thats a bad thing. One of y favorite civs in FFH, but : if they start inside continent - they are worthless, if thery start with lots of water - too powerful. Thats a dependence on circumstances, which cannot be countered. And that is wrong.

Lanun are great - they're different from other factions. As for starting inside a continent - that's why you use Flavor Start options that make sure that they're placed on the coast when you generate a game.

Do you agree that there are no real counters for a specialist economy or a Warrens mechanism? They're just different ways of being powerful.

Designing from scratch is much easier than redisigning completely working system. and one of things that you didn't understood but i will tell it for others : Balance in MP and Flavor are not denying each other, they are not opposite.

I don't understand what you are saying here.

and one that rely mainly on circumstances should be cut off

Which faction advantages have we implented that are only rarely useful? I can't think of any.
More trade routes? Better assault troops? Better desert access? Better air units? Better espionage? Better water income? Cheaper unit upgrading?
I don't understand what bonuses you're referring to. We don't have any faction bonuses that are very narrow. You're constructing a straw man.

There is no correlation between "civ-specific mechanisms that are very powerful" (which is what I'm advocating - and you seem to have a problem with, since you demand that every faction-specific mechanism must have a "counter) and "civ-specific mechanisms that are only useful in some circumstances".

And i know some old old games which still have its fans, despite being very old. Because of MP

.
I know some old games that still have fans, despite being old, because of SINGLE player. Like... Civ4.

To tell MP is unimportant - is to cut off more than 50% of potential players just by 3 words, sending them to play other games.

I strongly disagree that multiplayer is 50% of the player base. In fact, I would be amazed if more than 10-20% of civ players had *ever* played a multiplayer game. I never have.
How many hours have you spent on civ multiplayer vs civ singleplayer?
Maybe we should create a poll somewhere.

Civ, more than almost any other strategy game (SimCity-type games expected), is single-player oriented.

I'll say you another thing - I am 100% sure, that DW will be interesting for old Dune 2 / Dune 2000 / Emperror players , and will encourage them to read the books (Psychic Llamas is great example). And sure there will be (there are already) people which never played Civ IV. The downloaded game because it remind them of Books/ Movies/ Dune series games

This is all fine....

And those people will want to compete and play MP

... but this is a logical leap that I think is just not true.
Just because they want to play the mod, and enjoy the flavor, does NOT mean that they'll want to play it multiplayer.

I played Dune2, I played plenty of RTS games, many of them competitively (StarCraft, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2), but multiplayer isn't important to me in civ-games.

To get a rough feel, look at the post-counts of the forums.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=143

Multiplayer & PBEM: 60k
strategy & tips: 300k
creation and customization: 760k
General discussion: 600k

The fact is that "community" of Dune theme players will be very different of "community" of Open-ended Role-play Fantasy Game.

I do not belive this is true. Primarily, we get civ players. Civ players looking for mods are primarily those looking to extend their single player experience.

Slvynn's point is that FFH has gone *too far* with unique abilities

I do not think this is true. I think that the factions in vanilla FFH are really not that different, which is why the modmod community has been so active (FF, Orbis, LENA, etc) in further differentiating the factions, and creating new factions (Mazatl, Mechanos, Jotun, Scions) who play very differently.

Although having *highly* differentiated civs is great for single player, no mod has been able to achieve the goal of being highly differentiated and still MP-balanced.

I agree, which is why I think that highly differentiated civs si more important than multiplayer. I think this is what players prefer.

* * *
Perhaps I should post a poll, so we can get a real feel for community demand, and try to solve this empirically.

 

[Slvynn]

Well to much to answer and argue, i think i will skip ot for now, because its late night, i am bit tired and have succession game to play.



4 things -

1. i am sorry that it sounded offencive i did meant that (thats my bad english) (by saying its sad) i didnt wanted to offend you , sorry. Explanation in pt.4

2. I dont think that Creation and customization forum is good one for this poll - People that seek customized by their bigger % want more flavor. Community of that forum is not exactly community of particular mod. And if you post it in General discussion, you will get different numbers. Sorry again, but the poll is not in proper place.

3. As i said multiple times - that not necessary that flavor deny MP, and vice versa. I told that just but avoiding some "cans of worms", and removing small part of flavor, (it can be really small part and can have substitution which not break balance in oder to achieve flavor) we can achieve full MP viability. Its not 100 % vs 100%. By removing 10% of flavor you can add 100% MP viability (with some extensive work for sure). So i state that your poll formed is wrong form, for certain question - Amount of deifference can be very hight , preserving flavor, but game will be MP viable. Flavor is always good , but there are ways to create it without harming balance.

4. By posting that poll where it is now and questions it have now it quite clear to me that i am not being understood yet. Sad for me, because i dont know how to explain it to you, using maximum of effort, really.

Finalle: It is not 100% flavor versus 100% MP balance.

Its more complicated and i see 2 possibilities.

1. Ahrimans case. 100% Flavor + 0% MP viability. Flavor in place. MP loving players, Emperror/Dune series fans are gone. The only players are from CivFanatics Creation and Customization forums. The ones who tired to play FFH.

2. Another one - 80-90% flavor , and 100% MP viability. DW brings new people (it already did) from Dune series, New people who never played Civ IV but who played Dune RTS games, own community, like FFH did once with numberless peeps who like flavor and roleplaying.
Check posts of newcomers - several didnt played Civ IV before DW. People talking about remebering old RTS Dune times. The point is to create unique world of Dune, recreate it , using Civ platform , while being very different from it, having alot of flavor, but keeping MP viability.

I am not playing FFH. I played it alot and now it bore me. Sorry. Most of my friends wont to play it. The play other, balanced MP games.

I have alot of appreciation to Magister Cultuum and Kael and all FFH pees, they are super genius, but they not a proper people, those fantasy-releplaying peeps, to ask that question. There are other people left, numberless, which not play FFH, because it not fit to their gaming demands. If you cut DW to same course as FFH then DW will be gaining fewer people, because still, FFH is better in that regard. There are numberless players of Emperror, who enjoyed Dune feel, and you going to cut them . They not visiting Creation and Customization. Neither do MP/PBEM players. Because most of mods are just about SP.

Even more, if DW will be not balanced completely i doubt that i will play it (i'll get bored), because in my approach game it something with touch of competition. And flavour is not cure for boredom, espessially when you have 9 civs.

 

[keldath]

just for the record,

this mod, and my previous mods,

had 2 fundamental things in them:

1. make the mod not to wight much in terms of size - like rom2.5 and ffh -i tend to think large mods - over 250 mbs, are too slow and unstable in late eras.

2. always keep the mod playable in mp.

this was the case when i started dune wars.

i personally - hate games that have no mp in them, like galactic civilizations 2.

i would prefer you guys think about keeping it well worth to be good for mp,
ffh is indeed to complicated to my taste, but, who am i to argue with 2 million posts?

 

[Ahriman]

I have no problem with a mod that can be played in multiplayer mod. That is mostly a technical issue of making sure it doesn't crash or start getting crazy OOS issues, and of making sure that some factions are not massively more powerful than others.

I just think that design should prioritize the singleplayer experience, and not be bothered by the idea of factions that have different powerful mechanics that don't have rock/paper/scissors style mechanics. I object to the idea that every mechanic must either be weak, or have a "counter" mechanic.

This started up because Ecaz had powerful trade advantages. If this makes Ecaz more powerful than other factions, then the solution can be to buff the advantages of other factions, so that every faction has a powerful mechanic, not to nerf the Ecazi trade advantages down so that they aren't much of a bonus anymore.
Your percentages are just pulled out of thin air, and present another straw man argument.

I think a mod that has factions basically the same except for a couple of units and a UB will be pretty boring and have low replay value.
* * *

I dont think that Creation and customization forum is good one for this poll

I posted the poll in several places (linking to the same poll), including General Discussion.
Though I think Creation & Customization is the appropriate place for a poll about mod design; by definition everyone in C&C is interested in mods.
We're not interested in feedback from people who have no interest in playnig mods.

Check posts of newcomers - several didnt played Civ IV before DW

I do not believe that there are significant numbers of people who will play this mod without having previous played vanilla Civ4. The target audience of the mod is primarily civ players.
Any gamer who hasn't played Civ4 by now isn't really likely to enjoy it much.

 

[Slvynn]

Still, and sorry, i think that some options are incorrect. Fr example noone will choose similar factions, but balance MP. There is hight favor aviable withg preservance of Balance and MP feel. so this is not correct

One will play nicely designed mod if it have BIT less flavor than FFH, but have MP balanced. No loss.
If DW have alot of flavor but no MP - all MP players are lost = major loss. Again, i'll stop here. I think some DW voting will be nice.

There are some things that should be avoided. That is my statement. Just need to be carefull and preserve MP viability. Most of MP viable games preserving quite nice flavor. We should aim for that.

I really hate games that are not MP viable. Game is something social. And denying that in price of small, tiny part of flavor is bad. I am not denying Ecaz trade routes. I am warning - Curcumstance-dependance is bad - All what matter should be skill, you, Ahriman, get bit too narrow understanding of my statements, and i wont continue this argue, but will like to hear David's and Deliverators thoughts on this matter.

 

[Ahriman]

What I don't understand is why you think that having powerful mechanics for each faction that are *different* from each other necessarily means that a game cannot be played multiplayer.

And I think my poll questions are reasonably neutral, and can give us good indication of how important our potential audience thinks multiplayer is.

But yes, clearly we're not going to persuade each other, so let's let data decide.

 

[Slvynn]

That data wont convince me , because its not so relvevant , questions are simply irrelevant, sorry - as i told -
a. by denying MP you denying alot of mod's potential value,
b. by denying some small part of flavour which achieved by adding mechanics, that destroy balance, you just improve the game. It still can have huge flavor. There are many ways to achieve flavor, without any harm to balance.

No one want mod without flavor. Thats clear, and please do not link (like you tried to do in that poll) such thing to my point of view. I never said that flavor should be neglected. Balance wont deny flavor. Starcraft for example. But! - adding too much mechanics, which hard to control, which are circumstance dependant - takes you away from balance.
My statement is that we should watch and filter ways and mechanics by which we make civs different. There are some things to be avoided, and some ways should be focused. Such thing, such statement, is not appear in your poll.

Saying that MP is irrelevant - that tells me much, and i wont argue. The statement is undoubtedly wrong and weak, to my eyes, thats a very wrong thing to state.
Numerous of your statements are wrong , sorry to mention that - the people are buying Civ IV to play DW. I have seen such ones here, and if there is one - there will be another. I wont argue more, but again, i vow for david's and Deliverators post on this matter. Denying flow of new players - thats BAD !! FFH brough once tons of new players to civfanatics (which never played Civ IV). You want to deny DW doing same!!!!!!!

Furthermore - i'll repeat, i dont see DW sucess if it aim flavor only, neglecting the blanace and MP. And i have no interest in game that completely ignores MP. Such games bore me, and many other people. Many (all - once when i played FFH noone shared my love to FFH with me) of my friends love Civ IV but wont play FFH. They just dont like it, because it IS unbalanced, and deny fair competition between the players, and uses mechanics that AI can not handle. Some of them love Dune very much, but they'll play totally balanced game, once it will be such, i've been told. And i agree with them.

As separate solution - i like to see flavour in making unit layout very different for each civs. Masses of UUs, UBs, and URU ivolved mechanics. Economical benefits should restrained and watched carefully - they are very powerfull in Civ IV platform.
Simple alot of carefullness needed. Once you were talkig about Amtal, remeber? so where it gone, that Amtal?

 

[Deliverator]

I don't think this needs to be an argument.

Ahriman's poll is indicating that I am in the majority of mod players, in that I've never played multiplayer, primarily look for a single player experience and want civs that play differently.

From this feedback, I think it is totally appropriate to focus on the single player experience first and foremost. I acknowledge that yourself and Keldath both like multiplayer and I think we should aim to have the mod playable in MP too - it is not irrelevant - but I don't agree it should be the primary focus.

Slvynn, I would say that no-one is arguing in favour of creating unbalanced mechanics. We want significant civ differentiation and flavour (in my opinion we still have some way to go on this), but we do not want imbalance. More players will be attracted to the mod initially be civ differentiation as Ahriman says, but if the mod is completely imbalanced then it will be frustrating or boring in the long run as Slvynn points out.

I think we need to calm down a bit and realise that 90% of what you guys are saying is actually the same. We can all benefit from trying to understand each others point of view more. The only difference is around whether single or multiplayer should be the primary focus. I think if we aim for a fun and balanced mod then there is no reason why we can't have a good SP and MP experience.

 

[Slvynn]

Well i agree with Deliverator, and i never said that SP is not main focus, but MP should be focused as well. Not ignored. Yes - with good teamwork and understanding there is possible to make both good, SP and MP, balance and fun. Simply - please dont deny MP, dont deny people who might come from Emperror to DW. It is possible, and many people whom i know will seek both MP and SP. It just drive me mad when i hear that MP is not important. MP wont deny SP, and main focus - to preserve them both hightly enjoyable.
Only thing i ask - lets examine and check every mechanics before adding it and see if it possible to substitute it with something that will preserve more "clear" balance, or will be more easy to adjust in order to maintain it. This means if you add something major and unique - others should have ways to deal with it. To have same benefits from other originas or to have other benefits at same era. No circumstance dependance. Skill and players choice should be the main matter.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't think this needs to be an argument.

The only things I am arguing with are the following assertions, which I think are untrue:

1. "Multiplayer balance is crucial to the mod because a large proportion of people are primarily interested in multiplayer".

To tell MP is unimportant - is to cut off more than 50% of potential players just by 3 words, sending them to play other games.

Since more than 50% of people have never even played a single multiplayer game, ever, this seems wrong.
Civ players think that faction diversity is more important than balance.
I also find the idea that a significant proprtion of our audience are Dune RTS players/fans who have never played Civ fairly absurd.

2. "Mechanics need to somehow have a specific "counter" to them, in the same way that unit types have particular rock/paper/scissors counters."

This means if you add something major and unique - others should have ways to deal with it.

This just seems wrong-headed to me. It would be fine for a faction to have a higher water growth rate without there being a specific counter that lowered its water rate. Or a higher trade route rate, without there being a specific counter to trade routes. Or higher building production, without there being a specific counter to unit production.

Balance comes at a faction level, from every faction having powerful mechanics. It does not come at an individual mechanic level, where every mechanic has a specific counter. Factions compete with each other by having different ways of being powerful (more trade routes, larger cities, better units, etc.), not by specifically countering particular mechanics.

3. "There are specific mechanics that we have proposed that are highly situational, and not generally useful."

No circumstance dependance

I have yet to see any example of faction strength mechanics that are highly situation-dependent, and not generally useful.
I agree that the mechanics of a faction that make it powerful should be things that are useful every game (or almost every game), but I don't see any of our proposals as violating this.
So I resent the assertion that somehow having significant faction variation and mechanics that do not have specific narrow counters somehow inherently mean thar faction bonuses are narrow/situational in scope.

I also resent the implication that I am demanding the game be unplayable in multiplayer.

1. Ahrimans case. 100% Flavor + 0% MP viability

 

[Slvynn]

*Sigh*
I agree again on Deliverators post that we shoudl understand more each other.

I did not said that the things we have now violate it. I told that there should be rule of keeping balance, when you add feature to civ, you add other features to other civs, or at least make note about it.
Again i think you wrong on most of your points .
And there is never will be perfection in balance, but when you add - other should get somethig too, and all of them should be able to deal with each other at EVEN odds!!!! in each era. Perfection is when all is matter is player performance.
That mean avoiding complicated mechanics.
Avoiding adding mechanics which are hard to control/perserve balance with other civs. There should be not single viable tactic for particular civ - there should be many, and choice should depend of your enemy choices. One who dictate choices win. Thats an old schema, and i played alot of games, and only those who preserved it had long life.
again , its sad i am not being understood and still being argued with. I vow for preservance of some restrain in adding mechanics and increasing economical bonuses. And Deliverator right , we perhaps mean the same.
Also i resent many of your ways of understanding for my posts. I see that i am still not understood. And, as i said - that poll means nothing to me. It stated in wrong way, not answering to our question - and as you see there much people who play mp. If game will be only SP focused - they all will be lost.

If we'll just inspect any mechanic and feature , and will keep that balance noone will be lost. MP and flavor will be preserved.
Again, you argue with parts of my posts with doubtful arguments, but you not getting to the point.
And you did meant (perhaps you just not understanding that) 1. Ahrimans case. 100% Flavor + 0% MP viability . MP based on carefully chosen balance. I talk about PvP MP. You gave FFH as example. But actually FFH is not good example here, because FFH fair PvP is almost non-existant.
I saying that in terms of flavor DW should be close to 80% of civ flavor of FFH, But much more MP playability.
There are “planes” where civs can be different. If civs different in one “plane” , its easy to adjust balance. If they differet in many “planes” its lamost impossible to balance them. I say there should be limited amount of planes in which civs can be different.
I think if we change 9 civs units/buildings list to be very different - that will be awesome. (more UU and UB).

 

[keldath]

id say, that making civs different is excellent, and the more different each play i think the player would enjoy more.

i agree also with deliverator,
mp shouldnt be the main goal, single is more important, i, despite my declaration of mp, never played a full mp game.

im just saying that mp should be as an option, and mp game should be stable,
but on our development, we should devote much thought to "how this would play in mp".
we need to concern our selves making single game better and funner - if its working for mp, swell, if not and un balanced, well - someone can always make a modmod....like many other successful mods.

good idea on the pole ahriman, very good.

 

[davidlallen]

Here are two points we will all agree: (1) we should avoid civ-specific mechanics which are so strong, that the AI player of that civ will consistently have the highest score among all AI's in a large SP game. (2) A good human player is better than the best AI player.

We can put those together to get (3) we should avoid civ-specific mechanics which are so strong, that a human player of that civ will consistently win against any other civ played by a human. That is the "MP problem" which Slvynn is pointing out. It is not an absolute thing, it is a scale. A very strong effect violates (1), a moderately strong effect violates (3).

We can put those together a different way, but this is fuzzy and much too hard to prove; (4) we should avoid civ-specific mechanics which a good human player can use to beat the AI more easily. This is not really much of a test, since the AI is not very good. We definitely use this test to reject designs which the AI cannot use at all.

 

[Slvynn]

Oh great post david. Thank You .
I'll also extend (3a) - avaoiding civ-specific mechanics that make this civ really stronger against some certain civs , and as solution - eac hciv should have way to counter other civs. It is extensive work - but there only 9 civs, so thats is easier.

(3b)
And yes - some mechanics can be used more efficiently by human.

And if AI civ A = AI civ B, but h.player Civ A > h.player civ B , using same civs mechanics - that is bad result as well


(5) avoiding (finding replacement for) any mechanic which makes balance of powers of 2 civs unmeasurable, hard to evaluate.(not only to AI but to player and modder as well) More of those- more uncertain it goes, and less controlable, and there is lot of (5) in FFH. (thats is thing about "planes" of difference i am talking about)
as solution - evaluation upon implementing, fixing balance or making note of it. Dropping anything that cant be evaluated/blanced in sure way/amount (need just to seek alternatives that will be more certain/evalutionable)

 

[Ahriman]

I agree with (1), (2), and (4).

I agree with the first half of (3)

we should avoid civ-specific mechanics which are so strong, that a human player of that civ will consistently win against any other civ played by a human.

I disagree with the second part of (3):

a moderately strong effect violates (3).

Reasonable multiplayer balance can still be achieved by giving different moderately strong effects to different factions.

I reject the core idea encapsulated in this, which is that faction-specific mechanics cannot be moderately powerful. I am surprised David that you feel this way; previously you strongly opposed suggestions that would have weakened the Tleilaxu plague ability, on the ground that you wanted faction-specific effects to be moderately powerful.

I agree with the first half of 3a:

avaoiding civ-specific mechanics that make this civ really stronger against some certain civs

though I think this is a strawman, since we have not proposed any mechanics that violate this (with the exception of some of the anti-Ixian things in the Butlerian proposals).

But I reject the second half:

eac hciv should have way to counter other civs

A counter-based system is not the appropriate way to way to think about balancing mechanics across factions.
The appropriate way is to design mechanics that are of roughly equal strength.

I disagree with 5.

avoiding any mechanic which makes balance of powers of 2 civs unmeasurable, hard to evaluate

Many of the most interesting mechanics (eg Tleilaxu plague, BG Kwizatz Haderach units, Harkonnen Traitor, etc. etc.) are unmeasureable or hard to evaluate. I cannot support a design approach that rejects these out of hand. What we do instead is try our best to balance these across factions. Balancing these is fuzzy and inexact, but its more important to have intereseting/fun/different mechanics than it is to have mechanics that can be balanced precisely; this is what it means to have a single-player focus.