After playing the elves...

[Unser Giftzwerg]

ya ya, everyone is overpowered, thats the point, and its fun, if you want to fix the elves, play vanilla, there they're called Arabia and their leader is Saladin, and i think they have 1 unique unit, and they're an even match to every other civ in every way.


a useful thread about elves would be ways the AI could utilize its own power so they can defeat the elves easily. i know i have no trouble using any civ to overpower the elves (who don't have the best economies, but i guess pretending they do somehow serves a purpose).

The nice thing about economies is, they can be quantified. Until then, pretending to know the answer is just pretending.

 

[Sureshot]

yep, and simply put, they lose river commerce by default, have no financial leaders, and have no increased chance of discovering heavy commerce resources like gold or gems. where do they get the extra commerce? imagination land? no, they gain it no where, all they gain is 1 production in some tiles.

quantified its already obvious they don't have a better economy, the only way one can pretend they do is by imperfect trials.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

So, for river tiles they choose whether they want an extra or an extra . Otherwise, they either get an extra or nothing at all, until bloom, when they can get that extra virtually anywhere. Your comments, Sureshot, have not, and will not, change this.

The fact that they get extra means that, while other Civs must choose between having a city or a city, the elves get both. Where other Civs have to focus on production and sacrifice their economy, the Ljosalfar don't. I don't think the answer lies in making their cottages give less . It seems more likely that giving them less will solve it much more neatly.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

yep, and simply put, they lose river commerce by default, have no financial leaders, and have no increased chance of discovering heavy commerce resources like gold or gems. where do they get the extra commerce? imagination land? no, they gain it no where, all they gain is 1 production in some tiles.

quantified its already obvious they don't have a better economy, the only way one can pretend they do is by imperfect trials.

How do they "lose" rive commerce? Please explain. Every time I plunk a population on a river tile, I see one little pop up. Until Cottages become available, Elves work their tiles just like everyone else. Then things change.

Anyway, I'm off

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I believe she is referring to the fact that the elves cannot get both the from forests and the from rivers.

 

[Sureshot]

ya ya, ive heard your invalid yield arguments like twenty times (and for some reason its the same reason for starting multiple threads)

they dont have to choose, anyone can make cottages everywhere a elf can, except they lose 1 production per city size (if by some grace of the gods you get forest on every single tile). but guess what? people who chop them down get bonus production, that bonus production could build them a marketplace 20+ turns before the elves one, so thats +3 gold, better economy woo.

you can't seem to understand that their bonuses are conditional and simple, 1 production which in ideal scenarios is 1 production for 1 trade (rivers are ideal city sites, and floodplains the best cottage place even for elves), and they don't get financial (which is a constant lowering of commerce for the elves compared to any real economic powers)

i don't know if and have somehow infected you and you must seek an outlet to show them in every post, and somehow elves are the fodder for it, but it really should stop, the bulk of people already disagreed, the mod makers like the way its balanced, this thread reveals you hadn't even played the elves before (so your previous threads were completely devoid of experience), and your own poll on the subject gave ample proof that they should stay how they are

Poll on whether Elves should be weakened by Chand

and not mention the fact that elves just do not have a stronger economy than any financial leader/khazad/Lanun; and certainly aren't the most powerful in terms of units - in fact id rank them as the weakest asiding civs that have had no or little work done on them. and the many drawbacks are just dismissed (elven workers can be captured; no siege engines make capturing and keeping cities impossible against an equally intelligent adversary; weaker attack units, stronger defense but with weaker city defense; elf slaying promotion that gives a cover all elf killing benefit to anyone else; and the list goes on and on).

 

[Piemax^2]

In response to

I'm actually beginning to suspect that the Elves could conquer the world, though, if played with a strategy besides Leaves.

Of course they can, as can everyone else. Once again this will depend on the settings.

 

[Bad Player]

Grigori: Early, free heroes, but no religion
Luichirp: Lower reliance on resources, but reliant on hero for promotions
Calabim: Vampires... not sure if there's any explicit disadvantage, though
Ljosalfar: Improvements in forests, but no siege engines.

Calabim can't build elder councils.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

they dont have to choose, anyone can make cottages everywhere a elf can, except they lose 1 production per city size (if by some grace of the gods you get forest on every single tile). but guess what? people who chop them down get bonus production, that bonus production could build them a marketplace 20+ turns before the elves one, so thats +3 gold, better economy woo.

You neglect to say that keeping the forest there results in several hundred over the course of the game, and also that the elves can chop down forests to make way for mines and workshops, which can later be destroyed if desired.

you can't seem to understand that their bonuses are conditional and simple, 1 production which in ideal scenarios is 1 production for 1 trade (rivers are ideal city sites, and floodplains the best cottage place even for elves), and they don't get financial (which is a constant lowering of commerce for the elves compared to any real economic powers)

You may not be aware of this, but there are actually several traits in Civ IV! You see, some of them just directly give you , but others have more strategic uses. One is called creative, and gives you +2 per city (meaning that you don't need obelisks, saving you one per turn per city, along with several dozen ). Another is called philosophical, and it makes it so that you don't have to go through anarchy (saving several hundred and in the later stages of the game), and it gives every disciple unit an extra movement point (quicker religious spread, more strategic benefits). One more is called industrious, and it gives you +50% when you're building a wonder (often gives you wonders that others would get, speeds national wonders, dozens of strategic benefits). And don't forget the Arcane and Summoner traits, each with their own uses. Financial is a crutch. Saying that the elves are weaker because they lack it is asinine.

i don't know if and have somehow infected you and you must seek an outlet to show them in every post,

Is this supposed to make your argument stronger?

Poll on whether Elves should be weakened by Chand

If you wished to call this to my attention, it would have been simple enough to PM me. That you post it in public simply shows that you have fallen to trying to attack my credibility instead of argue with valid points. I wouldn't care if I was the only person on the FfH boards that believed that the elves were too strong. I'd still be posting, just as I do now, because I have reached that conclusion and see no flaw in its logic.

Do you really want me to address all of your points, instead of dismissing them? Fine:

elven workers can be captured

(1) Not if you cast loyalty on them, (2) so can just about every other unit in the game, (3) not when the elves are played by a similarly intelligent oponent, (4) not without some risk involved given the high number of troops that elves are able to build

no siege engines make capturing and keeping cities impossible against an equally intelligent adversary

(1) Why not capture some siege engines? (2) Other units and spells can be used for the purposes of collateral damage and bombardment, (3) siege weaponry isn't as good at defending as an equally priced standard military unit, (4) capturing and keeping cities is only necessary for warfare where expansion is the objective

weaker attack units, stronger defense but with weaker city defense

The marksman isn't a defensive unit. Neither is the flurry.

elf slaying promotion that gives a cover all elf killing benefit to anyone else

(1) You just mentioned the Khazad being better, and now you include something that can be used against them, too, as an argument? (2) The AI never uses these. 99% of the games out there are single player, making this a major point.

The reason I don't normally respond to all your points is that reasoning with you is futile. You simply ignore my points as "invalid," and then proceed to rehash your old arguments and attack me without even making an effort to defend you point. I can hardly mention the elves without you swooping down out of nowhere to disrupt the conversation. Unless you can maintain a civil conversation, I must request that you go back to ignoring my posts like you were before.

 

[Bad Player]

woah let's chill out a bit guys!

 

[Sureshot]

i wont bother reading your post, a sure sign someone has no real argument is when they are forced to break a persons post down into little bits to try to pick it apart and juxtapose their opinions and fabrications into it

if you want to actually convince someone of anything, try creating a valid argument with stated facts that add up. though i imagine if you did that, you would see the invalidity of your pursued goals.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

You condemn and contradict yourself with your own words. You ask me to respond to your points, then say that it is a fallacy to do so. You implore me to make a valid argument, yet you refuse to read what I write. If you truly did not read my post, then I will repeat for your benefit: if you are incapable of holding a civil conversation, please leave.

 

[Sureshot]

sounds good, i already left the other one, try not to make multiple threads discussing the same topic (also don't make polls then act opposite the results), thanks.

 

[dreiche2]

You may not be aware of this, but there are actually several traits in Civ IV! You see, some of them just directly give you , but others have more strategic uses. One is called creative, and gives you +2 per city (meaning that you don't need obelisks, saving you one per turn per city, along with several dozen ). Another is called philosophical, and it makes it so that you don't have to go through anarchy (saving several hundred and in the later stages of the game), and it gives every disciple unit an extra movement point (quicker religious spread, more strategic benefits). One more is called industrious, and it gives you +50% when you're building a wonder (often gives you wonders that others would get, speeds national wonders, dozens of strategic benefits). And don't forget the Arcane and Summoner traits, each with their own uses. Financial is a crutch. Saying that the elves are weaker because they lack it is asinine.

So you're saying one shouldn't decide about if the elves are unbalanced only by looking at their economic power after all?

Honestly, this discussion is running in circles. A main point of the tree-huggers here (or those that are, um... tree-neutral... like me) was that civs don't need to be balanced in categories like military or economic might, but as a whole, and also a civs strengths and weaknesses don't have to balance them out themselves, as long as they net advantage is balanced compared to other civs (so, in general, every civ has a strong advantage compared to a vanilla one).
Still, the tendency here seems to concentrate on the suggested economic advantages of the elves and how to nerf them based on that.

Anyway, when Surershot talked about the financial trait, she clearly addressed the question how strong this economic advantage actually is, and now you counter her by saying a missing financial trait is balanced out by things like the summoner trait


Honestly, this whole mod is under heavy development, things change on all ends, then making huge arguments about why some civ is maybe somewhat unbalanced is a little bit off in my opinion if the..uh.. unbalanciness isn't really strong and clear. Which, I guess, it isn't, judging from this discussion, chand's poll result and opinions like this

I've played the elves, and made the AI bow before my power. On the other hand, I've done the same with the Luchuirp, the Grigori, the Calabim, the Khazad, and the Malakim. So if the elves are overpowered, they are not alone in it. In fact, the most powerful civilization, I found, was the Grigori and their adventurers...

The only aspect where I find it convincing that elves are better as (some) other civs is, like Halancar said, in the hands of the AI, simply because it's much easier for it to make use of the ability to build in forests than to use the adventurers or the Khazad vault, etc, right... though here the goal of the dev team apparently is to improve the AI...

But, no one can stop you from continueing your huge tests and discussions, but maybe you should keep the number of threads limited, as not to anger the tree-huggers any longer

 

[Grey Fox]

This thread is only another proof in the proofpile that balance is one of the hardest things to achieve.

 

[dreiche2]

haha I was reading poopile here...

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I started up another Arendel .15 game... It's almost year 200 and I have twice the score of my nearest rival. I have been able to quickly expand to eight cities (ninth on the way), all without a single war, despite three rivals starting near me. This would be more or less impossible with any other Civ, but the Ljosalfar are powerful enough in the early game to do it. I actually did found the Order, and the basilicas and courthouses are allowing me to keep a decent economy even with this early expansion. I have Valin Phanuel and Gilden Silveric poised to attack whenever I feel like it, and Baron Duin Halfmorn can be made in a dozen turns. I'm just about to finish commune with nature and bloom my whole empire, but the game is already as well as won.

Anyway, when Surershot talked about the financial trait, she clearly addressed the question how strong this economic advantage actually is, and now you counter her by saying a missing financial trait is balanced out by things like the summoner trait

Meh, I was aiming more towards pointing out that lacking Financial isn't necessarily a crippling handicap.

Had I used warfare in the above game, I could easily have wiped out all my neighbors, expanded without restriction, and then crossed the ocean and wiped out the technologically backwards Civs uncontested. As is, I'll still be able to do that over a longer time scale. The lack of siege engines is irrelevent, as I built the Pact of the Nihlorn with the elves' huge production advantages. Even had I not, I could still overpower enemy cities with sheer weight of numbers.

About all Civs being equal eventually... it seems like so many Civs are "done," but their power is nowhere near that of the Ljosalfar. It's certainly simpler to change one Civ for balance than it is to change all of them, especially when many Civs have already been balanced out with each other.

 

[Silverkiss]

You´re drunk ;D

 

[Chandrasekhar]

FfH2 is far more intoxicating than any mere liquid.

 

[eerr]

I started up another Arendel .15 game... It's almost year 200 and I have twice the score of my nearest rival. I have been able to quickly expand to eight cities (ninth on the way), all without a single war, despite three rivals starting near me. This would be more or less impossible with any other Civ, but the Ljosalfar are powerful enough in the early game to do it. I actually did found the Order, and the basilicas and courthouses are allowing me to keep a decent economy even with this early expansion. I have Valin Phanuel and Gilden Silveric poised to attack whenever I feel like it, and Baron Duin Halfmorn can be made in a dozen turns. I'm just about to finish commune with nature and bloom my whole empire, but the game is already as well as won.


Meh, I was aiming more towards pointing out that lacking Financial isn't necessarily a crippling handicap.

Had I used warfare in the above game, I could easily have wiped out all my neighbors, expanded without restriction, and then crossed the ocean and wiped out the technologically backwards Civs uncontested. As is, I'll still be able to do that over a longer time scale. The lack of siege engines is irrelevent, as I built the Pact of the Nihlorn with the elves' huge production advantages. Even had I not, I could still overpower enemy cities with sheer weight of numbers.

About all Civs being equal eventually... it seems like so many Civs are "done," but their power is nowhere near that of the Ljosalfar. It's certainly simpler to change one Civ for balance than it is to change all of them, especially when many Civs have already been balanced out with each other.

how many of these civs have you played and found underpowered? maybe the elves just fit your strategy best?