(2-51a) Counterproposal: Nerf overpowered promotions

Voremonger

Warlord
Joined
Mar 20, 2018
Messages
192
Location
Germany
Counterproposal to https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/2-51-proposal-units-lose-xp-on-upgrade.680806/

Proposal: This is a counterproposal to this proposal. No change to XP accumulation but instead nerf those promotions that are overpowered and thus make XP accumulation so strong in the first place. Specifically I propose:
  • Range: +1 range, -20% CS -> +1 range but -70% damage when attacking at maximum range.
  • Logistics: +1 attack, -30% CS -> +1 attack, second attack deals -50% damage.
  • March: Always heal when taking an action -> Always heal at least 5 HP when taking an action (can be increased by medic promotions), heal when pillaging increased from 25 HP to 50 HP. This proposal was amended to no longer increase healing from pillaging.
Rationale: Currently the optimal strategy for humans in terms of warfare revolves around getting units that can abuse a handful of promotions that are frankly overpowered. Nerfing those promotions would promote more diverse military strategies and discourage players from farming XP until they get superunits. Making all units lose XP upon upgrade seems like a band-aid fix to players with overpowered armies.

The reason why I think the range and logistics promotions should reduce damage instead of combat strength is because large negative modifiers to CS lead to wildly different results depending on other CS modifiers. At for example -80% CS a change of just +-10% base CS would change the effective combat strength by +-50%. So depending on other factors a large reduction in combat strength could either make an attack useless or barely impact it at all. If instead the final damage is reduced by some fixed percentage then the effect is much more consistent. The revised range and logistics promotions should further be implemented as options: there is no malus if the unit is used as per usual but if the extra range/attack is used there is some penalty to damage. The penalty on range should be more severe than on logistics because attacking with +1 range is extremely safe.

March is less overpowered than range and logistics but only because it's more limited in terms of where you can use it effectively. March in owned territory where you get +15 HP per turn is overpowered, otherwise it's fine. In addition to the nerf to regular healing I propose increasing the heal on pillaging because I think healing promotions are most at risk of becoming overpowered in owned territory but I find them to be relatively weak in enemy territory.

Other promotions that I considered:
  • Survivalism 3: Recon units are not that strong in terms of combat so I don't think this is a problem. Only exception would be getting a scout from ancient ruins, but I think that's more of an issue of ancient ruins.
  • Stalwart: +35% CS when defending is very strong but it's not enough to win you the game. Even at high CS your units will eventually die if they keep eating attacks.
  • Air logistics, air repair: I'm fine with air units being strong since there is a hard limit to how many you can deploy at once.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Just to clarify, are you saying -70%/-50% damage, or CS?
I am proposing a change to damage, not to combat strength. I don't think large combat strength penalties can work since they get you relatively close to 0% combat strength where the damage calculation has poor mathematical properties.
 
With the removal of CS% reductions, March is now one of the strongest promotions in the game, even in enemy territory. It just needs backup with medic (which is also very strong now because of its lack of CS% reduction).
 
Yeah, to be honest I don't think I read the original proposal of "remove malus to Medic" as including March, I'm surprised that was added. During ratification I definitely think that should be reverted, if nothing else. I also think Medic could use some tweaks, which I've added as a proposal already.
 
  • March: Always heal when taking an action -> Always heal at least 5 HP when taking an action (can be increased by medic promotions), heal when pillaging increased from 25 HP to 50 HP.
Wait, doesn't this make march stronger in most cases? Yes its weaker in your home turf, but who cares, its out against the enemy that I need the juice, and that pillaging bonus increase is insane.
 
  • Logistics: +1 attack, -30% CS -> +1 attack, second attack deals -50% damage.
Lets check a few numbers here just to get a feel for how this might look. Logistics becomes more common place around the g gun era, so lets use that for our basis.

Lets compare the various versions of a level 4 Gatling Gun
(Our Baseline) v1 Gatling Gun (Barrage III + Accuracy I): RCS - 66 (over 50% health), 74.8 (under 50% health)
v2 Galting Gun (Barrage III + OG logistics): RCS - 44 (x2 - over 50% health), 57.2 (x2 - under 50% health)
v3 Gatling Gun (Barrage III + new Logistics): RCS - 57.2 (over 50% health, 2nd attack at half damage), 70.4 (under 50% health, 2nd attack at half damage)

ROUND 1 - Against Riflemen (Shock III +30%, open field, no fortification, -15% for covering fire, +20% vs ranged attacks): CS - 67.5
Spoiler :

v1 G Gun
AttackAttackerDefenderDamageNew HP
1​
66​
67.5​
29.66007​
90.33993​
2​
66​
67.5​
29.66007​
60.67986​
3​
66​
67.5​
29.66007​
31.01979​
4​
74.8​
67.5​
31.68921​
-0.66942​

v2 G Gun (OG logistics)
AttackAttackerDefenderDamageNew HP
1​
44​
67.5​
22.63382​
97.36618​
2​
44​
67.5​
22.63382​
74.73237​
3​
44​
67.5​
22.63382​
52.09855​
4​
57.2​
67.5​
27.36479​
24.73376​
5​
57.2​
67.5​
27.36479​
-2.63104​

v3 G Gun (new logistics)
AttackAttackerDefenderDamageNew HP
1​
57.2​
67.5​
27.36479​
92.63521​
2​
57.2​
67.5​
13.6824​
78.95281​
3​
57.2​
67.5​
27.36479​
51.58802​
4​
70.4​
67.5​
15.32745​
36.26057​
5​
70.4​
67.5​
30.6549​
5.605667​
6​
70.4​
67.5​
15.32745​
-9.72178​

Summary:
  • v1 (no logistics): 29.66 - 31.69 damage per round.
  • v2 (OG logistics): 45.26 - 49.99 DPR (52.6% - 57.7% stronger than baseline)
  • v3 (new logistics): 41.04 - 45.97 DPR (38.6% - 45.1% stronger than baseline)
Conclusion: new logistics shaves off about 5 damage a round, and knocks out about 12% of the damage increase from old logistics. Overall, still markedly stronger than baseline but a decent hit.


ROUND 2 - Against G Gun (Accuracy III +30%, open field, no fortification, -15% for covering fire, +20% for defending): RCS - 59.4
Spoiler :

v1 G Gun
AttackAttackerDefenderDamageNew HP
1​
66​
59.4​
31.73741​
68.26259​
2​
66​
59.4​
31.73741​
36.52519​
3​
74.8​
59.4​
34.28358​
2.241611​
4​
74.8​
59.4​
34.28358​
-32.042​

v2 G Gun (OG logistics)
AttackAttackerDefenderDamageNew HP
1​
44​
59.4​
25.0138​
74.9862​
2​
44​
59.4​
25.0138​
49.9724​
3​
57.2​
59.4​
29.4259​
20.54649​
4​
57.2​
59.4​
29.4259​
-8.87941​

v3 G Gun (new logistics)
AttackAttackerDefenderDamageNew HP
1​
57.2​
59.4​
29.4259​
70.5741​
2​
57.2​
59.4​
14.71295​
55.86115​
3​
57.2​
59.4​
29.4259​
26.43524​
4​
70.4​
59.4​
16.48835​
9.946892​
5​
70.4​
59.4​
32.9767​
-23.0298​

Summary:
  • v1 (no logistics): 31.74 - 34.28 DPR
  • v2 (OG logistics): 50.02 - 54.44 DPR (57.6% - 58.8% stronger than baseline)
  • v3 (new logistics): 44.14 - 45.92 DPR (39.1% - 34.0% stronger than baseline)
Conclusion: As the defender's CS/RCS drops the better old logistics does. The nerf seems to be stronger here as well, ultimately now a stronger 14-18% drop in functionality.


Round 3 (High Defender Round) - Against Riflemen (Drill I + Cover 2 +60%, Forest Hill +35%, Fortification +20%, -15% for covering fire, +20% vs ranged attacks): CS - 110
Spoiler :

-50% RCS due to covering fire vs fortified unit
v1 Gatling Gun (Barrage III + Accuracy I): RCS - 44 (over 50% health), 52.8 (under 50% health)
v2 Galting Gun (Barrage III + OG logistics): RCS - 22 (x2 - over 50% health), 35.2 (x2 - under 50% health)
v3 Gatling Gun (Barrage III + new Logistics): RCS - 35.2 (over 50% health, 2nd attack at half damage), 48.4 (under 50% health, 2nd attack at half damage)

ver1 G Gun
AttackAttackerDefenderDamageNew HP
1​
44​
110​
13.11629​
106.8837​
2​
44​
110​
13.11629​
93.76741​
3​
44​
110​
13.11629​
80.65112​
4​
44​
110​
13.11629​
67.53482​
5​
44​
110​
13.11629​
54.41853​
6​
52.8​
110​
16.62842​
37.79011​
7​
52.8​
110​
16.62842​
21.1617​
8​
52.8​
110​
16.62842​
4.533281​
9​
52.8​
110​
16.62842​
-12.0951​

v2 G Gun (OG logistics)
AttackAttackerDefenderDamageNew HP
1​
22​
110​
3.529412​
116.4706​
2​
22​
110​
3.529412​
112.9412​
3​
22​
110​
3.529412​
109.4118​
4​
22​
110​
3.529412​
105.8824​
5​
22​
110​
3.529412​
102.3529​
6​
22​
110​
3.529412​
98.82353​
7​
22​
110​
3.529412​
95.29412​
8​
22​
110​
3.529412​
91.76471​
9​
22​
110​
3.529412​
88.23529​
10​
22​
110​
3.529412​
84.70588​
11​
22​
110​
3.529412​
81.17647​
12​
22​
110​
3.529412​
77.64706​
13​
22​
110​
3.529412​
74.11765​
14​
22​
110​
3.529412​
70.58824​
15​
22​
110​
3.529412​
67.05882​
16​
22​
110​
3.529412​
63.52941​
17​
22​
110​
3.529412​
60​
18​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
50.76602​
19​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
41.53205​
20​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
32.29807​
21​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
23.0641​
22​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
13.83012​
23​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
4.596144​
24​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
-4.63783​

v3 G Gun (new logistics)
AttackAttackerDefenderDamageNew HP
1​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
110.766​
2​
35.2​
110​
4.616988​
106.149​
3​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
96.91506​
4​
35.2​
110​
4.616988​
92.29807​
5​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
83.0641​
6​
35.2​
110​
4.616988​
78.44711​
7​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
69.21313​
8​
35.2​
110​
4.616988​
64.59614​
9​
35.2​
110​
9.233976​
55.36217​
10​
48.4​
110​
7.464051​
47.89812​
11​
48.4​
110​
14.9281​
32.97002​
12​
48.4​
110​
7.464051​
25.50596​
13​
48.4​
110​
14.9281​
10.57786​
14​
48.4​
110​
7.464051​
3.113812​
15​
48.4​
110​
14.9281​
-11.8143​

Summary:
  • v1 (no logistics): 13.11 - 16.63 DPR
  • v2 (OG logistics): 7.06 - 9.47 DPR (46.1% - 43.1% weaker than baseline)
  • v3 (new logistics): 13.85 - 22.39 DPR (5.6% - 34.6% stronger than baseline)
Conclusion: Logistics struggles against very highly fortified defenders, the OG logistics is quite terrible in fact when facing these opponents. The new logistics is actually a buff here, still providing a decent benefit over baseline, and twice the DPR of the old logistics.
 
Wait, doesn't this make march stronger in most cases? Yes its weaker in your home turf, but who cares, its out against the enemy that I need the juice, and that pillaging bonus increase is insane.
I typically want to avoid having my units at low HP in enemy territory if at all possible. Even if I could heal 50 HP by pillaging I would want to do it way before that. I think in enemy territory the biggest danger is getting your units focused down in a single turn (typically because the AI happened to build their roads in such a way that enable many ranged attacks). For that any variant of march isn't going to be very useful. I guess the specific usefulness would depend on how stiff the resistance you're facing already is though: for comparatively easy wars more healing from pillaging would be very good. In any case, I'm open to changes.
 
Do units with both Range and Logistics do negative damage on second attack at max range then? Also Logistics still has the double XP gain.
 
Do units with both Range and Logistics do negative damage on second attack at max range then? Also Logistics still has the double XP gain.
The penalties are intended to stack multiplicatively. So the second attack with extra range would deal 15% damage. I don't have particularly strong feelings about the increased XP gain.
 
I typically want to avoid having my units at low HP in enemy territory if at all possible. Even if I could heal 50 HP by pillaging I would want to do it way before that. I think in enemy territory the biggest danger is getting your units focused down in a single turn (typically because the AI happened to build their roads in such a way that enable many ranged attacks). For that any variant of march isn't going to be very useful. I guess the specific usefulness would depend on how stiff the resistance you're facing already is though: for comparatively easy wars more healing from pillaging would be very good. In any case, I'm open to changes.
You never have a unit in enemy territory that is below 50 hp from attacks? I think you seriously underestimate how strong that pillage healing is.
 
You never have a unit in enemy territory that is below 50 hp from attacks? I think you seriously underestimate how strong that pillage healing is.
I do but I won't necessarily have a tile that I can pillage in that situation. The hardest fights in enemy territory are those with lots of rivers, hills, and forests and in those it will be much harder to pillage a tile for the heal. For the fights that are easy anyways I think the balance doesn't matter too much. My intuition is that on average the healing would be equivalent to the tankiness you get from stalwart but I could certainly be wrong since I haven't playtested this.
 
I do but I won't necessarily have a tile that I can pillage in that situation. The hardest fights in enemy territory are those with lots of rivers, hills, and forests and in those it will be much harder to pillage a tile for the heal. For the fights that are easy anyways I think the balance doesn't matter too much. My intuition is that on average the healing would be equivalent to the tankiness you get from stalwart but I could certainly be wrong since I haven't playtested this.
Right but your still getting the same amount of march healing you were getting before in enemy territory. Again this is pure buff in the enemy's territory.

Now you could argue how much the nerf in home territory matters vs buff in enemy territory, but the fact we are having that debate at all seems weird if a thread that is about providing a decisive nerf to these promotions.
 
Right but your still getting the same amount of march healing you were getting before in enemy territory. Again this is pure buff in the enemy's territory.

Now you could argue how much the nerf in home territory matters vs buff in enemy territory, but the fact we are having that debate at all seems weird if a thread that is about providing a decisive nerf to these promotions.
My take on the current version of march is that it's overpowered in friendly territory but bad in enemy territory. Yes, you can increase the healing with medic promotions but I think the opportuninty cost is too high since you're sacrificing potential tankiness which I value more on units that cannot be easily replaced. If the healing was simply reduced to 5 HP then I think march would be okay in friendly territory and still bad in enemy territory.
 
Considering we couldn't even convince players that no XP on logistics' 2nd attack was a worthwhile nerf, I will laugh my ass off if this passes.
 
Considering we couldn't even convince players that no XP on logistics' 2nd attack was a worthwhile nerf, I will laugh my ass off if this passes.
really? At that point it'd hardly matter. Both because logistic is the most important promotion and high xp is required for next promotion. I agree with that nerf.
 
It would allow us to put logistics on UUs as free promotions without it functioning as a +100% XP bonus
At higher levels as a chosen promotion it still can greatly decrease the time to your next level.
 
March: heal when pillaging increased from 25 HP to 50 HP.
My Goths originally healed +25 on pillage and I reduced it to +10 within 2 versions because this 1 effect is very strong. Furthermore, a 50hp heal is identical to full heal in a lot of cases you would use it in with melee units until the bonus HP promotions go higher. If +10-15 on pillage was all March did, it would still be a strong pick.

Also, X Bonus heal that isn’t full heal on pillage is new code.
 
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