A question...

[Iceciro]

What is the overall goal for Fall Further + as far as the strength of each nation goes? When I was working on Fall Flat one of my tenants was to nerf as LITTLE as possible and bring the lagging nations up to speed with the ones we might call major nations - Ljosofar (yay forests), Scions of Patria, Lanun on Archipelago, Cabalim anywhere...

I always thought that each nation should be able to shine within it's element in a massive way, and that would be a more fun game than "if all anybody has are rocks, it's balanced" because imho we get that in Civ IV base.

I ask this because I'm looking at the ahead-of-time .51 patch notes for Fall Further and see another round of nerfs coming to the Scions of Patria... and want to know where Fall Further Plus is heading in that mindset as gar as existing races go. Especially if I'm going to start helping out! ^_^

EDIT: The two nerfs I'm referring to are the reduction of Reborn from cities and the further increased WW from the Scion palace. 35% is a LOT of war weariness. Am I the only one who plays the SoP aggressively?

 

[WarKirby]

I ask this because I'm looking at the ahead-of-time .51 patch notes for Fall Further and see another round of nerfs coming to the Scions of Patria... and want to know where Fall Further Plus is heading in that mindset as gar as existing races go. Especially if I'm going to start helping out! ^_^

EDIT: The two nerfs I'm referring to are the reduction of Reborn from cities and the further increased WW from the Scion palace. 35% is a LOT of war weariness. Am I the only one who plays the SoP aggressively?

There are a few rebalancing tweaks in both directions. Your view appears to be a little one-sided

33 Scion Haunted Lands will spontaneously appear, based on the number of relevant units owned and the type of terrain
35 Arawn's Dust can now destroy camps
36 Fed creepers do not cause war when "taking root"
37 Martyr's of Patria are now free units
38 Rooted Creepers stats boosted

All of these, for example, are definitely positive things for the scions. The first removes a lot of micromanagement and almost certainly allows spreading HL faster than doing it manually. The last one in particular, I believe makes Rooted Creepers have the same strength as a longbowman, so they can be used as seriously powerful defenders.


And this one

62 Undead units are less resistant to Unholy and less vulnerable to Holy damage types

is a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand, they won't have quite such an easy time dealing with AV/infernals/agares, though still easier than other civs. But on the other hand, angels, crusaders, et al, and also the banishment spell, are less effective against them. I'd argue it to be positive overall.

82 Twincast is available to all Adept units of Level 10 or greater

This isn't scion specific, but it can nevertheless benefit the scions greatly, due to the emperor's combination of Arcane/Charismatic. When playing as him, I often end up with an army of high level mages. Twincast allows double summoning, by the way. two skeletons per necromancer, or two spectres at once

116 Scion Workers are now Engineer Corpse (no aptitude, no free XP, +25% base workrate)

Another double edged thing. Scion workers no longer gain xp, but are naturally better. I'd call this an improvement too, I think.


I'd personally say 0.51 will make the scions stronger overall. And with item 33, more fun to play, regardless of weaker or stronger, due to removal of annoying micro


Sorry, didn't mean to derail your thread into a scion discussion.

So far, FF+ seems to be heading in a direction of "ooh shiny!". As far as I can tell, valk works on a comvbination of incorporating other modmods, and implementing random crazy ideas (dwarven forts yaay)

 

[KillerClowns]

...Am I the only one who plays the SoP aggressively?

No you aren't. Of course, Bone Hordes (though a late-game unit) don't cause WW, and there are ways to mitigate WW. But 35%? That's not gonna be fun. Since I play Korinna, I suppose I'll try OO to mitigate War Weariness via asylums, or perhaps the Order to silence my major cities with Unyielding Order. Glory and Nationhood do reduce WW, though in this case it'll still be a pain. Though looking at civics, a Theocracy/Social Order combination might be just what the doctor ordered; keep my major cities under Unyielding Order, and good-sized garrisons for the rest.
So, as I see it, Scion warfare is still a viable, and indeed, excellent tactic. You just can't go on a full-blooded WAAAGH! whenever the whim strikes you.

 

[WarKirby]

Glory and Nationhood do reduce WW

This is a good point. Glory is a Scion-specific civic, by the way.

Both of the above give -50% war weariness total, which more than nullifies the palace penalty.

 

[Iceciro]

Glory is also available at Engineering, IIRC. Not exactly high on my tech priorities list. I do see the many buffs you point out. Creepers irritate the snot out of me so I am happy about that. I never played with worker XP on because when I last played that was a recipe for the AI to leave their workers lying around to be captured or killed, so can't comment on the loss of worker XP there.

If Rooted Creepers have longbow-man like defense that's great except for they'll just swap back to dying creeper, not making them suitable for long-term defense - though they're really a free unit for all intents and purposes, so no loss no gain.
---------------------------------

All that aside, the real thing was not me complaining about the Scions getting "nerfed" because I obviously haven't had a chance to play with them in .51 and would have to base any assumptions on actual playtesting rather than how the rules read on the forum.

My real questions were about the direction of the FF+ team, and the changelog was just what made me start wondering.

 

[Valkrionn]

Well, I DO have a tendancy to do what Warkirby described, but at the same time I focus on a civ and 'improve' it. Last one was actually the D'tesh, and next is Jotnar courtesy of Vermicious. Really, I want to bring them all up to the Ljos/Malakim.

As for the Scions, I'd have to play with the new version to see. I think 35% might be a bit much too, but we'll see.

 

[xienwolf]

This isn't scion specific, but it can nevertheless benefit the scions greatly, due to the emperor's combination of Arcane/Charismatic. When playing as him, I often end up with an army of high level mages. Twincast allows double summoning, by the way. two skeletons per necromancer, or two spectres at once

You are rather wrong about how Twincast works. Which just means it is a good thing we are making it more common.

Base FfH Twincast: You get twice the number of units from any summoning spell. No change for any non-summoning spell.

FF Twincast: You can cast 1 more spell per turn. Each is a seperate casting, and you can choose not to even do the second, or to cast, then move, and then cast again.

That means it is IMPOSSIBLE to use Twincast to get a second skeleton, as each caster is only allowed 1 of each Permanent Summon (so far), but you could have the 2 wraiths in a turn, or you could have a Wraith and a Maelstrom. Or just double Maelstrom.

 

[Valkrionn]

Or, when the Bezeri are in and you're using a toad archmage, triple cast.

 

[KillerClowns]

This is a good point. Glory is a Scion-specific civic, by the way.

Both of the above give -50% war weariness total, which more than nullifies the palace penalty.

Except both are (mutually independent) Cultural Values. Other sources are needed to fully nullify the palace penalty.

 

[Vermicious Knid]

In response to the original question:


Speaking only for myself, my balance goal is to have every civ "broken" enough that someone would read the specifics and say "OMFG, are you kidding?!? I have to try that!"

The civs are mechanically different enough that true balance would be enormously difficult to achieve. FFH and FF are nowhere close to balanced, for example. I don't think that is an issue at all so long as each civ is unique and interesting to play. We aren't building a game for competitive tournament play.