7.4x Balance Thread

[scutarii]

I guess, I found the reason why "Mazatl landscape" is so overpowering:

please pay attention to description: deep jungle/marsh/swamp fresh water ( irrigated).

But w/o irrigation there is only deep jungle/marsh.

Irrigation "gives" in addition swamp bonuses too, it is plain wrong, I think.

Also notice, how settler can't settle to deep jungle/marsh/swamp.

 

[scutarii]

delete, plz.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

actually, he can't settle there because it's too close to Xochyotwhatever

 

[TowerWizard]

WARNING! This post contains a lot of complaints! Still love the game though, and play it for hours every day!

Sephi: Even if you give the player three "warnings" before joining, theey still will not know what it is they ARE joining if this is not properly expressed somewhere. Especially since one cannot unjoin, as I understand it. I don't really see the point of the change, to be honest. Can you explain why you wanted to change so much?

Since I am writing this, I can as well write some more. I must say that I have complaints about the tech tree. The early techs are too expensive, and most tier one techs are mostly useless (exploration, mysticism, crafting). I would suggest that you either make these techs cheaper, or add some more from tha later techs. Exploration could enable you to build camps (the resources themselves enabled at hunting), mysticism could enable Elder Council and Crafting could enable apprenticeship. Another thing, as someone mentioned, there is the inconsistency about the free units you get for certain techs. If you get an adept for reaching KofA, why don't you get a free archer at Archery? Why do you need to build a Mage Guild to build the Catacombs, but not an Archery Range to build the Arrow Tower? And, for that matter, why is there not a wonder that builds a Training Yard in every city?

Also, where are the goblins? All I see is endless hordes of archers? Another thing, the option "animals and barbarians only spawn in fog of war" does not work. Three goblins and a fort popped up next to one of my scouts, and a bear cave next to another scout.

 

[graywarden]

TowerWizard,

I will only respond to the tech cost comment, the rest I will leave to Sephi.
Yes some of the techs may be expensive, but the variety is so great, it allows for a number of strategies that you can use, depending on your game and priorities.
In the end you can consistantly reach the end of the tech tree by the end of the game, at least this has been the case on my tests. I always test on Noble setting, Huge Map, Normal Speed and unless I am having a very very bad game, I can almost always get to the end of the tech tree.
The balance that this represents is greater then you might realize, having tested a number of other Mods. The Time-Line to the Number of Techs is a very hard thing to balance out, and Wild Mana does an excellent job of this from that perspective.
The challenge is to determine what your priorities are in relation to your strategies and goals within each individual game. If you want to found a relgion, you better get on it fast, even faster then in FFH2. If you want great success in the wilderness, better make hunting high on the list.
Or if you want a balance of resource management/civic options/building improvements then a broader approach will get you there.

Give it a few more tries and I think you will see what I am trying to sayl....

 

[TowerWizard]

Gray Warden: In most of my games the issue is getting rid of the barbarian threat. That can only be done by both archery and axemen for most civs, that is, those civs that do not have access to an early hero. I do not like to throw three warriors to kill one lousy goblin archer. Thus it takes a very very long time to get past the first two cities. After that, though, the game gets easy. By that time, you have your hero units, and you can just kill the stupid AI. Just get a reasonable stack of units, declare attack, kill his stack of doom (in my ongoing game I lost 0 units when attacking his stack of 30+ S4 axemen with my ironpowered S6 axemen) and then it is just the tediuos part of building up his cities so that they are actually good.

The point is that in Wildmana, it is not the other players that present the biggest challenge! It is the barbarians!

And no, I do not agree with you that there are a lot of different paths. There are just two. Either you go directly to achers/axemen or you are lucky enough to be able to postpone this long enough to build some farms or a elder council first. The only way to get hunting before archers is if you get lucky by popping a hut, and even then I rarely build more than one or two hunters. They are expensive, and it is not the animals that is the problem, it is the barbarians!

 

[TowerWizard]

Oh, and two other things!

1. The buttons that enable you to cast spells every turn are good, but since they look exacly the same as the regular spell casting buttons, I have more than once hit the repeat button and lost the ability to do something else in the next turn. My suggestion is to put something over these buttons, like an overlay. Put a red X over the pics or something, just to make you see the difference.

2. Sometimes you won't know what promotion an enemy has just by looking at the 2*2 millimeter picture representing the promotion. Since there are so many promos, it gets tedoius to try to match the picture with a name in the wiki. Suggestion is, keep the pictures the way they are, unless the player hits like Shift when doing the on-mouse-over thing at the unit. Then the pictures are replaced with the actual name of the promotion.

I hope you guys understand what I mean! Not easy to explain!

 

[Breez]

Just last night I had a warrior (1 warrior that is) DECIMATING goblin archers. The archers have been toned down. Cover 1 is all you need to slaughter them like sheep. That warrior now has cover 2, combat 5, Shock 1, and March. I'm thinking of renaming him BarbBane.


As for the spells the way I keep it straight is the auto cast spell icons are on the right, the single cast on are the left, had no problems since i figured that out... but then I play on a 24" screen too

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

one weird thing though about the archers is that when their power increases, they don't become 3/4 but plain 4, which makes them too good on the offense. and yeah, normal goblins definitely seem to be missing.

 

[TowerWizard]

Breez: Yes, I have also had warriors like that. But my point is, untill you have one such unit, the archers are such an annoyance. And to get such a unit, you either have to be extremely lucky, or have thrown warrior after warrior on "the archer problem" untill the last one finally succedes. It sure is easier with axemen. And, no, the Cover promo is not all you need. In my games, the archers very often camp on a forrested hill. That's +50 defence. Oh, and then they shoot at you, and they always hit the best unit first. There is usually more than one archer also.

Look, maybe I am just a whiny stupid noob, in spite of my having played civ for years. If you think I am, then fine. Think that. I still want to state my thoughts about the game.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

archers are supposed to be an annoyance. definitely get the cover promo ASAP, and DEFINITELY do not let them camp on hills, especially forested ones. engage them aggressively, otherwise you'll have them sitting there for a while. you're not alone in the annoyance, but it's actually an engaging one so it's fine imho. after all you gotta admit the little buggers are playing it smart

 

[cabbagemeister]

1. The buttons that enable you to cast spells every turn are good, but since they look exacly the same as the regular spell casting buttons, I have more than once hit the repeat button and lost the ability to do something else in the next turn. My suggestion is to put something over these buttons, like an overlay. Put a red X over the pics or something, just to make you see the difference.

I strongly agree with this.

Other thoughts:

-I really like the "free unit for the first to research a tech" idea for the second-level religious techs and KotE and such. I do NOT like it for the T4 unit-enabling techs. For T4 units, you almost always want to upgrade your most highly promoted T3 units instead of building the T4 unit from scratch. Thus, a free level 1 Beastmaster is just a unit I have to delete so that I can upgrade all four of my high-level Rangers.


-I love that Agrarianism got nerfed to keep it from being a no-brainer choice, but I believe it got nerfed waaaaay too much. The production penalty is just massive. As it is, the civic gives:
A big malus for the early survival stage when you need to pump our warriors as fast as possible to fight off barbs;
Little benefit for Rexing (settler production), since the production malus cancels out the food benefit
No benefit for the mid-endgame when you're always near enough to your happy cap that massive growth is undesirable

I don't have a great suggestion for fixing it (maybe reduce the hammer penalty to -10%? Maybe go back to FFH's +1 food on farms, but add -5 commerce on farms to prevent aristograrianism?), but I think it needs to be fixed, because I have never played a WM game in which I actually wanted to use it.

 

[Sephi]

WARNING! This post contains a lot of complaints! Still love the game though, and play it for hours every day!

Sephi: Even if you give the player three "warnings" before joining, theey still will not know what it is they ARE joining if this is not properly expressed somewhere. Especially since one cannot unjoin, as I understand it. I don't really see the point of the change, to be honest. Can you explain why you wanted to change so much?

Esus as a state Religion was quite pointless before. You exchanged the benefits of a normal state religion to be able to have shadowriders. While they are definetly cool units, religions are just too important in FFH to make such a tradeoff work.

Also it's pretty cool if you don't know if someone follows Esus or not. The day will come when the AI understands the HN concept and then the Cult of Esus strikes back

 

[Sephi]

-I love that Agrarianism got nerfed to keep it from being a no-brainer choice, but I believe it got nerfed waaaaay too much. The production penalty is just massive. As it is, the civic gives:
A big malus for the early survival stage when you need to pump our warriors as fast as possible to fight off barbs;
Little benefit for Rexing (settler production), since the production malus cancels out the food benefit
No benefit for the mid-endgame when you're always near enough to your happy cap that massive growth is undesirable

the production penalty is indeed massive. However -20% in the early game isn't much, agrarianism usually gives around +2food per city and -1 production, as long as you can trade food to hammers via forest or mines no problem. Also the civic gives +2health which can be quite useful in some cases.

Another strategy is to combine it with slavery since the -20% doesn't count for hurry production.

 

[graywarden]

Gray Warden: In most of my games the issue is getting rid of the barbarian threat. That can only be done by both archery and axemen for most civs, that is, those civs that do not have access to an early hero. I do not like to throw three warriors to kill one lousy goblin archer. QUOTE]

TowerWizard,

You indicated your compaint was with the Tech Tree in your original post and my response was to that specifically. But what you really meant was dealing with the barbarian archer menace, and though they are linked in a sense, they are also different.

Yes you are correct, its a beoitch to deal with the archers, especially if they campout on a highly defensible position. But there are ways to work around and directly with the threat.

The one underlying principle I adapted with Wild Mana that was different then FFH2 was to almost double my unit production. I never have less the four defenders in a city, when I could get by with three in FFH2. When sending out settlers, send them out with that minimum defender, and with scouts to see hidden animals. Send scouting partys out in pairs, so that maybe you can get lucky and level up one to capture animals with.

As for stronger units in the early game, there are ways and methods available, you just have to broaden out a bit. I go for Runes of Kilomorph to get Bamber, or the Pact of the Nilhorn to get the Hill Giants for example.

The bottom line is you have to take the early game with a more aggressive approach both in your unit development and your tech research. Determine which path gives you that unit you need to counter the barbarian threat, and incorporate it in your strategy.

 

[TowerWizard]

Graywarden: "The bottom line is you have to take the early game with a more aggressive approach both in your unit development and your tech research. Determine which path gives you that unit you need to counter the barbarian threat, and incorporate it in your strategy."

Yes, this is usually what brings me to first Mysticism to get Elder Council, both for essential extra research and for stopping growth when you reach the happy cap. Then I go straight for the Runes, getting mining on the way. This "tactic" involves very few units. The archers will be an extreme annoyance, until Bambur finishes them off. The good thing with this is that you secure the best (?) religion and get the free Adept from the Great Sage popping KotA. The problem here is that by the time I get my second city, all the AIs will have three-four cities.

There must be other ways, however. I will try the tactic you described. By using the, now functional, "Barbarians and Animals will only spawn in fog of war"-option, you can keep regions clear. This seems like a cheat, though, since its only an option, and not implemented into the game directly. On a similar note, I have no idea how people can want to play with the "Raging Barbarians" option!

In short, I think the high costs of the techs, combined with the numbers of barbarian archers and beastmen, severely limit the freedom of tech choices and strategies in the early game. Maybe this is intended, though. It is called WILD mana, after all

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Malakim: maybe city tiles should not get automatically terraformed to desert? a -25% defense penalty in every city hurts, and it also takes away the occasional extra hammer from plains hills.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

imho the poison blade ability of the scorpions should have a cap on the number of units it can affect ( like teach ascetism ), infinite could be too much later on in the game

 

[Seven05]

If you want to found a relgion, you better get on it fast, even faster then in FFH2.

This has not been my experience. Very frequently (even with poor results from goody huts) I can get all of the holy cities I want. Messing around last night I played to turn 200 (normal speed) on noble and I had all of the holy cities except Esus. I wan't even sacrificing my normal techs as I was invading my neighbor's and their warrior, archer and axeman defended cities with my iron weapon equipped boarding parties maelstrom mages and glorious tsunami spewing cultists.

The problem wasn't luck or me being overpowered, I popped two goody huts (gold from both) a couple of dungeons (mostly big baddies that slaughtered my scouts), and one graveyard early in the game that gave me exploration. The problem was the AI was crippled by those archers that are supposed to be easy to deal with. More specifically, it was the stacks of three archers sitting outside their cities on a hill across the river. The AI couldn't expand, couldn't improve their land and they just kept making things worse for themselves by trying to kill a stack of three archers with a handfull of warriors.

Turn off ranged combat and the problem all but goes away. But ranged combat is fun...

1. The buttons that enable you to cast spells every turn are good, but since they look exacly the same as the regular spell casting buttons

Those are very handy, and very annoying

Different buttons would definately be nice.

archers are supposed to be an annoyance. definitely get the cover promo ASAP, and DEFINITELY do not let them camp on hills, especially forested ones. engage them aggressively, otherwise you'll have them sitting there for a while. you're not alone in the annoyance, but it's actually an engaging one so it's fine imho. after all you gotta admit the little buggers are playing it smart

They cripple the AI players though, and should have something added to their AI to force them to suicide against the adjacent city or unit(s) after a few turns. You never know, they might even win! Even if they all die anything is better than them sitting on the same tile for a hundred turns, unable to kill the defending warrior or lone hunter... bombard target, target heals back up to 100%, bombard target, target heals back up to 100%, bombard target, target heals back... ok, you get the picture

-I really like the "free unit for the first to research a tech" idea for the second-level religious techs and KotE and such. I do NOT like it for the T4 unit-enabling techs. For T4 units, you almost always want to upgrade your most highly promoted T3 units instead of building the T4 unit from scratch. Thus, a free level 1 Beastmaster is just a unit I have to delete so that I can upgrade all four of my high-level Rangers.

It was strangely satisfying to delete an archmage, but yes you have a good point... why? Well, I guess the AI will keep them around which means they'll actually have at least one, assuming the goblins leave them alone long enough to get some cottages out anyway

Yes you are correct, its a beoitch to deal with the archers, especially if they campout on a highly defensible position. But there are ways to work around and directly with the threat.

The great thing about new WM or FfH players is that they're like the AI, if they're having trouble just imagine how the AI is affected.

The goblin archers are frustrating because they do force you to deal with them. Not because they are a threat, because they remove your ability to play the game until you deal with them. They appear very early and they can completely shut down your 'empire' if you get unlucky with their spawns. I'd rather be overrun with wolf riders, at least it's quick

There must be other ways, however. I will try the tactic you described. By using the, now functional, "Barbarians and Animals will only spawn in fog of war"-option, you can keep regions clear. This seems like a cheat, though, since its only an option, and not implemented into the game directly. On a similar note, I have no idea how people can want to play with the "Raging Barbarians" option!

Here's a simple strategy

Beeline archery.

One archer and one warrior is far more powerful than three warriors, archers are vastly superior city defenders and can easily defend your borders well past the time when barbarian axeman show up if placed properly.

The 'option' to have them only spawn in the FoW is actually just returning them to the way barbarians worked in BtS and FfH. It was Fall Further that first allowed them to spawn in visible tiles as a mechanic to make them tougher to deal with. The masochists among us like that, but really the game option should eb to allow them to spawn outside the FoW, not the other way around. People are more comfortable leaving an option that makes the game harder off than they are enabling an option that makes the game easier, you know virtual machisimo

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I suspect both your religious and goblin archer woes are due to playing on Noble. Wild Mana AI seems to underperform at lower difficulty levels.