Ancient Ruins Balance - which of the rewards would you like adjusted?

[JamesNinelives]

You can pick any, all, or none this time!

Whether you think something is too strong, too weak, or just not very interesting, which of the rewards that you can get from ancient ruins would you like changed or at least reviewed?

Moderator Action: Moved to General Balance. - Recursive

 

[Asterix Rage]

I find interesting to have some strong and some weak.
A level of balance is already reached by allowing Recon Units to pick a type of reward only once.

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

while i am perfectly fine with them not being exactly balanced, the difference in ruins is honestly too extreme in my opinion. I get honestly really upset when i get 10xp for a unit, or mid game about 80 culture. Compared to a free tech that's not even in the same ballpark. Honestly I think the scaling on them should be changed to make rushing something like compass to get those ruins out of the way worth something. Also, instead of giving a free tech or population, how about X amount of science or x amount of food? Easier to balance in my book

 

[brutalz]

Map reveal is useless? Anyone else agree?

 

[JamesNinelives]

Map reveal is useless? Anyone else agree?

If you get map reveal with you pathfinder it's basically 2 free promotions, and it often reveals another ancient ruin as well! I see this as rewarding using your recon units for exploration and leaving your military units at home to protect your cities or to attack barbarians.

while i am perfectly fine with them not being exactly balanced, the difference in ruins is honestly too extreme in my opinion. I get honestly really upset when i get 10xp for a unit, or mid game about 80 culture. Compared to a free tech that's not even in the same ballpark. Honestly I think the scaling on them should be changed to make rushing something like compass to get those ruins out of the way worth something. Also, instead of giving a free tech or population, how about X amount of science or x amount of food? Easier to balance in my book

I agree the unit xp reward is too weak, I feel the same way. I also agree that rewards should scale more over time - most of them don't feel very important from about the Medieval Era onwards. I think the others are fine myself, but I'm keen to hear how other people feel!

Welcome to the forums by the way!

 

[Olmer]

Map reveal is useless? Anyone else agree?

Disagree. It's instatly +3 lvl to pathfinder, if he has lvl1. it gives variability in gameplay

+10 XP to unit - that is useless.

 

[frktest]

Map reveal is useless? Anyone else agree?

Yes I do.
I would like if map reveal is replaced (I don't know if it is possible) with a free unit, maybe a worker.

Also 20 culture points are good within the first 40 turns about, then they are too weak.

 

[brutalz]

Well, how about combine the unit xp ruin and map reveal ruin, into one, that way if a unit besides path finder gets it they can still get promotions, feels more useful

 

[looorg]

I am not sure you should adjust or tweak them for finding them later. The rewards should then be tweaked for being found and being relevant in the first say 20-40 turns, depending on game speed and such. After that they are a curiosity and happy accident and are not really relevant as a semi-random booster anyway.

I don't agree with that the map reveal is useless. I often find it quite nice. The XP reward for a unit tho is quite useless or perhaps it should be less useful as they are all useful in some regard as it is just free stuff. It's just the worst of the possible free stuff so it feels bad I guess when you get it compared to what you could have gotten.

I'm not sure if any of them should really be tweaked to much. As mentioned in the other thread I don't think the culture boost is to weak, if noted as for when you are supposed to find it then it can represent anywhere from say 10-20 turns worth of culture production which is somewhat in-line with the science production. It's just that amount of turns translate into a completed tech while it's just about a third of a culture policy. So if you got a policy just as you get a tech then the culture boost would be basically god-like and everything else would be utterly crap compared to it.

Perhaps then the "population" gain should just be translated into raw food? Not to endorse cannibalism or anything but why should it be an entire pop when all the others are a sum of production? In that regard the pop is a very variable bonus. It might remove the annoying feeling you get when you get a free pop just a turn or so before your natural growth. If it had been a fixed food bonus instead it might have overflowed better. Just like then say the production isn't a new building but a boost to what you are building.

Other then that I think it's the XP on a unit that is so small that I sometimes wonder what the reward even was if I wasn't paying attention and it's almost irrelevant. I'm not sure how that should be fixed. You could increase the boost I guess but it's probably not going to be earth shattering anyway. If you just give it enough xp to reach the next level it might be nice but also you get the fringe case then if you were just about to level and find that the reward become minuscule. Perhaps it would be better if it just went away.

 

[Boombar]

I think ruins should scale with era to encourage mid game exploration.
I never bother with ruins after classical because only free tech is good and that is like 1 in 15 chance.

 

[Ziad]

Territory on marathon could use a nerf. I regularly get 6 or so tiles from it. Feels a little OP.

 

[Philippe Desmarais]

I think most of the rewards are pretty balanced, except for the culture one, which is by far the weakest imo. Other than that, I also think it should be flat food and flat science(but I dont mind the free tech cause its quite strong and can lead to some unexpected and fun situations). I like the reveal map when picked up by the scout but not otherwise. And finally the xp one is fine but just too weak, I think it should give at least 2 promotions, which could lead to some interesting early development.
I really like the new ruins (except culture) so keep it up, thanks!
Also, about the scaling, Im in favor of it because, as it was previously mentioned, strategies that rush compass would benefit from that and it would make it actually worthwhile to build an explorer or 2.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I think most of the rewards are pretty balanced, except for the culture one, which is by far the weakest imo. Other than that, I also think it should be flat food and flat science(but I dont mind the free tech cause its quite strong and can lead to some unexpected and fun situations). I like the reveal map when picked up by the scout but not otherwise. And finally the xp one is fine but just too weak, I think it should give at least 2 promotions, which could lead to some interesting early development.
I really like the new ruins (except culture) so keep it up, thanks!
Also, about the scaling, Im in favor of it because, as it was previously mentioned, strategies that rush compass would benefit from that and it would make it actually worthwhile to build an explorer or 2.

Thanks for your input! And welcome to the forum!

 

[vyyt]

I'd like the free xp replaced with a free promo (= not increasing the XP needed for the next level).

 

[looorg]

I'd like the free xp replaced with a free promo (= not increasing the XP needed for the next level).

That is kind of interesting. Create a new unique promotion and give it to the unit as part of the hut (ancient combat technique and then give it some kind of boost - dmg, dmg vs barbs or whatever). Which solves the xp issue.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I'd like the free xp replaced with a free promo (= not increasing the XP needed for the next level).

That is kind of interesting. Create a new unique promotion and give it to the unit as part of the hut (ancient combat technique and then give it some kind of boost - dmg, dmg vs barbs or whatever). Which solves the xp issue.

I'm happy with that . Alternately, simply increasing the xp to something more meaningful (e.g. 100xp) might also make it more fun/useful.

I think there should be some advantages to using your recon unit to explore ruins rather than your starting warrior though.

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

I don't know if this is intended, but I've never seen the recon unit get xp, and the warrior never gets map, and i play with ruins on every game

 

[JamesNinelives]

I don't know if this is intended, but I've never seen the recon unit get xp, and the warrior never gets map, and i play with ruins on every game

I think that's intended. If you play Shoshone you will notice that it's not possible for recon units to get the xp promotion (the map is effectively the equivalent because if gives them xp anyway). Not sure about the other way around, but it would make sense.

 

[Zanteogo]

If we need to change anything... change the free tech to an amount of science and change the XP to either double what it currently is.. or something else all together.

Though I don't find AR's much of an issue as they are now.

 

[Ragic]

Just like archeologists are needed to dig sites, so too should ruins require a scout to be explored.